The Top of the Food Chain (formerly The Meek)
by DeusExfreak
Summary: AU. Those weren't blueberries in Bellwether's gun. Bellwether's operation is halted, but her secrets die with Judy. Now a white hat hacker coyote, Francisco Hernandez, becomes victim of police violence, and finds himself recruited by a questionable group of preds, looking to investigate rumors of a "Tame Collar" project at a corporation called AniTech. Constructive crit welcome.
1. ---

_"We're on the same team, Judy. Under-estimated. Under-appreciated. Aren't you sick of it?"_

As the world came back from its momentary blurr, the fox and the rabbit found themselves...somewhere. An exhibit, a circular room depressed into the ground.

Her body wracked with pain from the hard impact. In a cruel twist of fate, the suitcase had flown in the opposite direction.

She looked over at her dear friend. His eyes, like her's, were sorrowful, doughy, defeated, something she had thought she would never see on his face.

The cold silence was soon accompanied by the happy tapping of cloven hooves, and the laughter of the little ewe as she arrived at the precipice of their prison.

She had appeared so innocent, so sweet. So...

 _Cute._

A chill ran through the bunny's soul.

"Well, you should have just stayed on the carrot farm, huh?" the sheep gloated, enjoying her newfound power. "It really is too bad. I...I did like you."

Of course she did. They were kindred spirits. The same struggle, different solutions.

"What are you going to do?" Judy shot back angrily. "Kill me!?"

"Oh-ho no, of course not," Bellwether chuckled. Then she took out the pellet gun with a venomous grin, encapsulating the sadistic glee of her empowerment. "He is!"

In an instant she pointed and shot. Judy closed her eyes as the blue blur whizzed past her face, only to hear a grunt from the hard impact.

Nick had fallen, a stain on his neck.

"No!"

She scrambled over to Nick's side. She placed her hands tenderly on his back.

"Oh Nick!"

He winced and grunted as his body convulsed.

Above, she could hear Bellwether speaking. What was she saying?

"Yes? Police! There's a savage fox in the natural history museum! Officer Hopps is down! Please hurry!"

Judy could hear the sardonic mockery in her faux 'damsel in distress' mannerisms.

The dispatcher could not.

Judy Hopps looked back over Nick, knowing he was losing lucidity by the second. "No, Nick! Don't do this! Fight it!"

Could he even understand her?

"Oh, but he can't help it, can he?" Bellwether said, voice syrupy and sardonic. "After all, preds are just 'biologically predisposed to be savages.'"

How cruel to use her own words against her.

Judy knew cruelty was an indulgence the meek little ewe had been denied far too long.

Then a growl. Deep. Visceral.

The fox's eyes shot wide opened, showcasing a new sinister yellow, his teeth bared.

He was gone.

The bunny scrambled back. She got to her feet and turned to run, but she knew not where.

The horrible growling followed behind her.

Ahead was a stuffed bunny mannequin. Coming upon it, she tossed it at her assailant with all her mite.

It hit and impeded the fox with a yelp. But for how long? She did not know, she kept running. There was tall grass ahead, could she hide? Her heart pounded, her mind was filled with desperation, every system in her body was working in overdrive.

She backed in as deep and she could, fleeing through nature like her ancestors, and turned. It occurred to her the foolishness of her endeavor. She must have still been quite visible, to say nothing of a fox's sense of smell. She could clearly watch the fox, her sapient friend just a minute ago, viciously tearing the stuffing out of the artificial rabbit.

Was this how it felt to live thousands of years ago?

 _"Viscous predator, and meek prey!"_

The bunny looked around frantically, but no exits were possible. All was in vain.

"Gosh! Think of the headline!" Bellwether gloated. "'Hero Cop Killed by Savage Fox.'"

Finishing with his toy, he turned to her, teeth bared and a horrible growl.

At this point, Judy knew her doom was inevitable.

A poetic fate. Trapped in an exhibit that mirrored the terrifying past, dying with the sheep that represented the darker side of empowerment; The meek little ewe who had turned the world upside down, when Judy wanted only to give it an innocent little push towards equilibrium.

She looked up at her grim reaper. If she was going to die, she would at least die with dignity.

"So that's it, prey fears predator, and you stay in power!?"

"Pretty much," replied the Mayor, pleased with the succintness.

"It won't work!" she protested.

Back in Bunny Burrow, the predators had seemed invulnerable. On top. The heroes in every action movie. What every bunny secretly aspired to be. Prey did not hate predator, they just-

"Fear _always_ works! And I'll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way!"

At long last, after two-thousand years, the hierarchy had been inverted. The predator would become the prey. Just not in her case.

A strange noise: half-growl, half-roar, startled Judy out of her thoughts. She yelped, and turned her attention.

He was even closer than she realized, his fangs bared and nose twitching, waiting to tare into her flesh.

Her dreams would end the same way they had started: with a fox.

He had been her friend, her only friend since coming to Zootopia.

"Oh Nick!" she whimpered pitifully.

If there was a God, she could only hope He was merciful.

Another chuckle came from above. "Bye-bye bunny."

He got so close.

Then in an instant, he lashed out and grabbed his jaw firmly around her neck.

She let out a scream.

Fangs in her tender flesh, Judy Laverne Hopps was leaving the world KIA.

Her final moments passed, thoughts fading, of the world she left behind.


	2. Cops and Robbers

Frank unlocked the door, entering his air-conditioned, Savannah Central apartment.

The twenty-seven year old's work day had ended easy, but these days he dreaded getting home more than going to his job. Every evening he had to confront the same behemoth:

The news.

For the past several days, this had been his grueling evening ritual. Every day had brought reports of one or more Predator Attacks. Every evening brought tension, followed by despair as his worst suspicions were confirmed. But he could not cower from the truth. He would have to go numb, brave through this, and get it over with, again.

He walked to his beloved computer's desk, cluttered with detritus like loose papers and empty coffee bottles, sat down on his swivel chair, and shook the mouse.

The computer awoke. He tensed hard as he brought the mouse to the internet icon, but tried to be as detached as possible.

He double clicked. His breaths were shallow as his home page loaded. Could there be good luck, just this once? So far misfortune had been appallingly merciless.

And the main page, the top headlines, appeared. This was the moment of truth:

 **Hero Ex-Cop Judy Hopps Killed by Savage Fox**

 **Suspected Terror Plot Thwarted As Brother of Mayor Stops Train Collision**

 **Macrosoft Stocks Plummet Following Mass Laptop Recall**

 **TUSC Raid in Canal District Breaks Smuggling Ring**

 **New Study Suggests Raspberries May Increase Risk of Cancer**

Judy Hopps, the bunny cop. Killed. Just weeks after making history. That was pretty high profile. That would add to the wrath of the prey.

But it was just one predator attack, with one victim. It could be worse: he had seen four in a single day once.

So fortune had neither been kind nor cruel. His spirit had deflated.

 _'Ex-cop,'_ he recalled the headline said. He did not know she had quit the force, though he had stopped following anything in the news beyond predator attacks.

With that over with, he decided to check his phone for any new texts. That was usually his next order of business.

He was happy to see he had two. The most recent came from his mother.

 **Hey Francisco, Micheal is buying tickets to Animalia! Do you want to come?**

 _Animalia:_ That grand festival on Unification Day, after everyone had eaten their feast. He had forgotten Unification Day was coming up. The Predator Attacks would certainly sully the celebratory spirit, if they continued for that long. Then again, if the predator attacks continued for another couple of weeks, he might have worse to worry about than a bad holiday.

Although no fan of theatrical performances, Frank was somewhat lonely in Zootopia, so he was always eager for an excuse to get out of his apartment.

He texted back.

 **Sure.**

Tickets to Animalia cost an arm and leg, but there were perks to having a rich brother in law.

The next text was from...himself.

 **Pick up dry cleaning.**

Yes! Frank had forgotten.

The place was in walking distance, and he was still dressed, so he figured he might as well get right on it. Not like he had been in much of a mood to have any fun recently, anyway.

He got up, went back to his door, and jammed his shoes back on. He exited, and walked back down the stairs.

As he walked he thought about what he had read. If the prey were rational, they would see the fact that only one attack was good thing. If they were irrational, preds would be hated all the more for taking out that icon.

But why had she quit? Maybe he would research that later.

Exiting onto the streets, he turned leftward. The dry cleaner's was around the corner ahead.

Prey and predators of all shapes and sizes, but most bigger than him, walked the side walk. Living near the intersection between Savannah Central and Sahara Square, he often saw many camels, elephants, zebra, and gazelle. Medium sized mammals like himself were more of a rarity, but every demographic had some presence in Savannah Central.

It was unusually busy, even for rush hour. He noticed something new, though. A stand set up by the corner, which appeared to be selling drinks, candy, and magazines.

Frank decided he would get a drink. He was in the mood for a pink lemonade.

It looked like a wolf was selling the merchandise. That gave Francisco a small sense of relief. He had felt more comfortable around his own kind since the Predator Attacks began.

Arriving at the stand, he scanned the merchandise. Iced tea, Koala Cola, Fansa...no lemonade.

Maybe he would get candy instead.

"What can I get ya?" the proprietor asked. Frank looked up.

"Smucker's bar, please." And without another word, he looked down to get his wallet.

He flipped through the bills. He had quite a few twenties, thanks to his recent trip to the ATM. But the candy bar was $1.25, so he would rather-

Shock, as the wallet snatched from his hand! He looked up at the proprietor, who was stunned faced, then quickly to the right.

A rabbit had snatched it. He was running away, fast, weaving under the legs of large and shocked pedestrians. The coyote had been robbed!

Being able run under legs would be useful, so the coyote decided to get on all fours. He charged, flying under zebra legs, then gazelle legs, then earning the screech of a female honey badger as she jumped aside.

The rabbit was fast, but he was closing in. He was faster, his ancestors had needed to be. The rabbit turned the corner.

He swerved, almost falling over at the sharp turn, and kept charging with all his mite.

Then there was pair of stocky grey legs emerging from an alley. Clad in blue. A cop, a godsend!

Francisco stopped, nearly toppling over, and looked up to speak, but before he could even see the officer's face, he received an unimaginably hard kick to the side of the head.


	3. Awakening

The forest: Leaves, sticks, and moss formed an intricate blanket beneath which his paws pounded. A small rabbit was hopping away.

It was the past. Feral.

Yet calm.

It ran, he ran, leaves and twigs rustling beneath his paws. It was dark, but not night. The distance was closing, but he felt nothing, as if the whole world was floating through its motions without cause or reason. He felt the simplistic ignorance of a clouded mind.

Then he thought he heard a soft sobbing, echoing through the dark woods. From...the bunny? It sounded like a 12 year old boy. Could he be...

Darkness began to swallow the scene. He noticed his whole patch of wilderness had been on an island in a black void. It soon all disappeared beneath his paws, leaving a solid but invisible surface.

"Predators _are_ more dangerous!" said a male voice that reminded him of a honking horn. " _We_ don't have fangs and claws."

A female voice came next, "But how could someone..." then the voice faded. What were they saying? All of it was hidden behind a veil of his own waxing and waning consciousness. He realized he was dreaming, trapped in his own imagination. But were they real?

"I'm not saying...but...history..."

The next thing he heard were footsteps. But they faded. As did his grasp on the entire concept of the real world.

The darkness lifted again, revealing the bunny. It was stationary, pecking at the ground. Aimless and robbed of his sense again, Francisco approached, still on all fours like his ancestors. As in invisibly intertwined, the rabbit began bouncing away too.

The coyote sped up.

The rabbit sped up. Leaves crunched beneath his feet.

The sobbing came back.

Why? Where was it coming from? Why must it haunt his hunt?

He chased.

Was it coming from the rabbit?

He picked up speed. Yes, it got louder. Just before the bunny got faster.

Yes.

Feeling disarmed, a softer impulse overtook him, as lucidity started to creep back in. The coyote slowed.

The bunny slowed.

Until they were both stopped.

Yes, the rabbit was clearly weeping.

With soft but obvious footsteps, and wide tender eyes, Francisco approached. The rabbit did not move.

He was so close. The creature continued to weep.

He gently moved to put a paw compassionately on its shoulder.

"Hey-" he began.

But the instant paw touched fur, the creature veered around, its head instantly expanding to terrifying proportions to bite-

Frank gasped! He jerked in fear and heard a bed beneath him.

A hospital bed.

Yes. A hospital. White walls, torquoise gown, beeping machines and all.

And horrible nausea. And a splitting headache.

A chubby female beaver, a nurse, was looking at him with her hand on her heart, and mouth agape.

"My goodness! You scared me!"

He tried to speak, but in his confused daze could produce little more than a groan. His head felt heavy. He let out an involuntary, dumb groan, and put a hand on his head, only to find it IVed.

He just hoped he still had all his brain capacity.

"You're safe, dear!" she said, power walking to the bed side and then clutching his other paw compassionately. "You were unconscious for sixteen hours! We were afraid you were never going to recover!"

"I-"

He had a horrible headache.

"Just take it easy, hun," she said in a motherly tone.

"What..." He was about to finish his question but it seemed stupid. He knew what had happened. He had been chasing a rabbit who stole his wallet, and had been kicked in the head. By a hippo...or a rhino. A police officer, either way.

"How much do you remember?" she asked, eyes bearing tender concern. He was smart enough to match her concern, at least.

"I was..." speaking gradually felt easier. "I was...outside." Yes, fluid now. "On the streets. Someone stole my wallet. I chased him. Then a hippo kicked me in the head."

It sounded almost comical when laid out like that, but Francisco was in no laughing mood. He had an awful headache, and felt half-ready to puke.

Suddenly, those same hard, determined footsteps from his dream returned, but this time clearly coming from the hall outside.

A male doctor, a pig, entered the room. He looked at his patient with surprise.

"Mr. Hernandez! You're awake," he said. He did not sound particularly elated, almost as if simply making a note.

"Yes," the nurse said. "Thank heavens!"

"How do you know..." Again, he decided not to finish the sentence. It seemed a stupid question. There were plenty of ways to know his name.

"Just try to relax, sweetheart," the beaver nurse said. "You've been through a lot."


	4. Discourse

As night had fallen, the coyote was feeling a good deal more comfortable. His headache was not as intense, and his nausea was mostly gone. He had thrown up once in the afternoon, but he assumed that would be all. Trying as it had been, the worst was clearly over.

He had bonded significantly with the beaver nurse during this time, and they were enjoying a warm discourse. She was a stark contrast from her male superior, who seemed to want little to do with him.

"I moved around a lot as a kid too, but this seemed like the best place to be," the coyote said. "For a job like mine, at least. A big city has a lot more opportunities for work than a small town."

"Where else have you lived?"

"Podunk, Wooltica, Redhorn...uh...quite a few places in my early years..." It was that constant movement, among other things, that prevented him from developing any close friends.

Most of the friends he would have preserved would have been prey, anyway, and with how racialized politics had become, he imagined he had avoided a lot of pain.

"And what made you decide to do this kind of work?"

Frank welcomed the subject change.

"I was always into computers. Eventually I decided on a Cyber Security major and, so...here I am?"

"You don't mind working behind a desk all day?" she asked.

"Heh, well I've never been much for interacting with other mammals. But I'm not always behind a desk. I mean, that's how it started out, but recently things have gotten a little more hardcore." 'Hardcore' seemed like an odd word to use with someone like her, but whatever.

"Hardcore?"

"Like...recently I did a job for a Macrosoft office. They gave me free reign to walk around the building, talk to employees, even 'trespass', to do everything I could to try to crack into the system."

"Really?"

"Well, I mean...the head guy knows what I'm up to, so I don't know that it's technically tresspassing, but-"

"Mrs. Buckingham," the swine doctor said as he entered the room, looking at his clipboard unpleasantly. "I want you to review these."

The beaver smiled and gave a 'one minute' sign.

That halted their conversation for now.

Frank did not like Dr. Bresbee. He seemed cold. And worse, he remembered the words he had heard in the dream. But Darla's demeanor more than compensated. The classic wisdom proved true, that every demographic was a mixed bag.

Then something came to Francisco: was Mrs. Buckingham following the news? He should ask about predator attacks.

Though the thought made his gut tighten.


	5. Those Who Care

It was his second evening in the hospital.

"Good news, hun!" the beaver said as she entered the room. "The results are back! Turns out you'll be able to go home tomorrow afternoon!"

"Nice," Frank said. Although part of him had enjoyed the down time.

"It would be a good idea to take a week off from work, though, if you can, sweetheart. Your brain needs some rest."

That was more like it. Resting his brain was what he wanted to do more than anything these past few days, with his thoughts constantly anguishing over the Predator Attacks.

That reminded him: Darla kept up with the news, and she said there had been no more predator attacks yesterday, the first time since the missing mammal case had begun. Had there been any today?

Anxiety stirred in his torso, but he pushed himself to ask.

"Have there been any more Predator Attacks?"

The words practically shook his ears, hyper-sensitive for the impending answer, but at least they were out.

"There have not, hun."

A euphoria rose in him. Two days in a row!

"That's great!" Frank said. He could not have meant it any more.

Could the nightmare at least be over? Would Zootopia begin to put itself back together? Two days in a row could be just a bit of luck, but-

There was a knock at the door. They turned.

The door was already opened, so the wolf in the suit seemed to be doing it as a matter of courtesy.

His get-up was crisp and deep black, his fur a dark gray with a splash of white creeping up his neck.

"Mrs. Buckingham, may I come in?" His voice was strong and cultured, albeit with a minor raspy undertone. Frank thought he could detect the scent of tobacco on him, which would certainly explain that.

"Yes, you may," the beaver replied. "May I ask who you are?"

"Jack Dutcher. I represent the city government."

The coyote was deeply intrigued, were they coming here for him?

"Mr. Francisco Hernandez!" he moved in to shake paws. Yes. They cared. The pawshake was firm and eager. "I would like to say I am very sorry for what you endured on Afton Avenue. Many at the ZPD were worried you weren't going to recover."

Francisco was glad he was not conscious for that period.

The wolf then continued. "We would like to discuss the issue with you personally." He turned to the nurse. "I heard he will be getting out tomorrow afternoon, is that correct, ma'am?"

"Yes...if all goes well."

"Great!" He reached into his breast pocket and took out a card. "Mr. Hernandez, I want to make this...personal. Have you ever heard of a tavern called 'The Stained Fang?' In the Rainforest District?"

Frank was hardly into bar hopping, or any form of social life beyond his computer screen and cellphone. "No, sir."

"It's a high-class establishment. Stop by tomorrow evening, in the VIP section."

"Are you the owner?" Frank asked, but then immediately chided himself for the dumb question. If he had a job with the city government...

The wolf shook his head and laughed. "No sir, but I do know the owner! A lion named David Lennox. A very nice gentle-mammal. Just tell the bartender you would like to enter the VIP lounge."

He handed him the card, which provided the address, phone number, and name of the establishment.

This set Frank's mind whirring. He supposed he was happy about it, but had not quite processed it all. "What time should I arrive?"

"Between seven and eight would be ideal," Dutcher replied with a smile. "You should eat dinner before you come, but the drinks will be on us."

Francisco looked down at the card, then back up at the wolf.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go now, I have a busy schedule today. But I look forward to our discussion." He turned to walk out.

As he exited, a new warmth and encouragement permeated the young coyote.


	6. Returning Home

Turning the corner, he could see the scene of his martyrdom ahead, where he had been kicked in the head on the way to pick up the dry cleaning.

It was an odd chain of events. Who ever heard of a cute little bunny robbing someone?

Regardless, even though his life had rested on a pin head, he bore no feelings of ill will towards the police officer, and would make sure to make that clear to Mr. Dutcher. He was collateral damage in just war, a war that was hopefully over. Darla had said there had been no more Predator Attacks on the news, and though the day was far from over, two and a half days of peace at least meant a down turn.

Passing the dry cleaners, he looked at the patch of the sidewalk where had been kicked. He wondered how the crowd had reacted to scene.

Turning the corner, the stand where he had purchased the candy was now gone. He set his eyes back on his home, the Alcala apartment complex. He would be doing a lot of bed rest: the nurse had told him to take it easy on the loud music and videogames, and without work or those other two things, he did not have much to do.

Few other mammals were out at this time. It was just before 4 o'clock. All he saw were a couple of elephants and a fox on the other side of the street.

Passing a discarded styrofoam cup, he opened the door to his complex, and started heading for the stairs. Only a few hours could have passed since Darla checked the news, so there was unlikely to be anything new, but there was no reason not to check. And he was prepared to be disappointed, just in case.

207\. He opened the door.

He pried his shoes off, and walked to his beloved computer. He started it up.

Though not as tense as usual, his breaths were still shallow as he anticipated the news. Maybe some polar bear went savage at two o'clock and left four mammals dead, rekindling the fires of prey anger. Lady luck was not above a cruel joke. He was prepared for anything. But a brighter outlook was more rational.

His desktop loaded. It looked strange after three days absence. He moved the mouse to his internet icon, and double clicked.

The page loaded in a moment of suspense.

Then Francisco immediately began reading the headlines:

 **Mayor Bellwether Alleys Rumors: Mammal Inclusion Initiative Will Not Lead to Lower Testing Standards**

 **INTERVIEW: Remembering Officer Judy Hopps, The First Rabbit Policemammal in Zootopia**

 **New Study Shows Raspberries May Decrease Risk of Cancer**

 **Rabbit Anti-Defamation League Has Harsh Words For New Movie "Airship Down"**

 **Prey at Hayes University to Replace Unification Day Celebration with 'Day of Mourning'**

No new attacks, but the last title disquieted him. He clicked on that article. Was that as bad it sounded?

 **Prey at Hayes University to Replace Unification Day Celebration with 'Day of Mourning'**

 **Unification Day has, for centuries, been remembered as a day of celebration, feasting, family gatherings, and most of all, Animalia! Marked by the iconic image of spear-wielding zebras and lions shaking paws, this nationwide tradition is cherished across the land, but especially in the city of Zootopia. Yet in wake of a recent events, some say the celebration would be 'offensive.'**

 **"These past few weeks, over 80 prey have been maimed or killed by predatory mammals," Professor Hogbert of Mammalian Studies told reporters. "The textbooks speak of a beautiful day in which predator and prey met at the center of what is now Zootopia, to begin an era of peace and harmony. But it was never that**

Frank stopped. It was as bad as he thought. His heart was pounding. He knew imbibing anymore of those poison words be bad for him.

That was how they saw his kind? Predators were so drenched in sin, that even images of peace and harmony with them were offensive!?

It was a betrayal of his bright spirits after three days of peace.

His ancestors had ruled the wild, majestic and unstoppable. They had decided to share power with the prey out of the goodness of their hearts. Out of principle. And this is what they got as a result.

This perverse inversion of karma.

 _No good deed goes unpunished._

Suddenly, the coyote's mind went lose and fuzzy. A splitting pain materialized, like a crack through his brain, causing him to place his head in his palm and groan. He closed his eyes hard.

Pain.

Pain.

When at last it faded, he was back to the silence of his apartment.

He remembered what the nurse had said about stressing.

The coyote took a deep breath.

He could not dwell on what he had read. There was no good reason to let a bunch of mean-spirited Liberal Arts majors get to him.

He just had to figure out a way to kill time until his meeting with the Mr. Dutcher. Surely that conversation would make him forget about the wretched article.


	7. The Stained Fang

Francisco had left early, given he had little to do at home. He had spent most of his time in bed.

It looked like he was going to arrive right on time, judging by the clock on his phone. He had gotten a little lost on the way. The Rainforest District could be difficult to navigate, given the variable elevation, and this bar was up in the canopies.

Then he saw the neon words, "The Stained Fang." He could hear music muffled from inside.

He opened the door.

Inside was a dark and moderately crowded establishment. Chatter and clanging silverware. Smoke. About two-thirds of the bar seats were full, other customers dined in the booths. A female gazelle was the bar-tender.

'High class', as Jack Dutcher had referred to it previously, seemed like a bit of an overstatement. But it was not seedy either, with a shiny mahogany bar sporting rounded corners, and shelves that seemed to have a respectable assortment of drinks.

The coyote approached the gazelle.

"Excuse me, I'm here to see Mr. Dutcher."

She looked up from her cleaning. "Mr. Dutcher? I...ah! Hernandez, right?"

The coyote nodded.

She took something from behind the bar, and began walking towards a door with the bright blue neon letters "VIP" above it. She opened it. It looked like there was a staircase perpendicular to the entrance. She seemed to be waiting for him to enter. Frank walked in and she shut the door behind him, locking it.

Veins full of anticipation, he began trotting down the stairs, the start of a big night.

When he hit the lower floor, he immediately saw two wolves playing at the pool table. One of them was white female, cackling at some blunder of her opponent, who was dark grey with a splash of white on his...Dutcher? He had a cigarette in his mouth, a stained wife beater, and jeans. That was strange, but Frank recognized the patterns on his fur. It was definitely him.

There was an empty bar to the right, a door outside straight ahead, and a couple of small round tables in the corners to the left. There was also a door on the left wall, with a more stern and official look, from which a tall, broad shoulder lion in a black suit and red tie emerged.

The lion took notice of his guest immediately. "Rudy? Is this our mammal?"

The wolf looked up from his game, at Frank. "Yeah, chief. That's him."

 _Rudy?_ His name was Rudy?

The lion approached, he extended his paw, a golden watch upon it.

"I'm David Lennox. It's a pleasure to meet you." His dress was proud, but his voice was comparably soft and humble.

"Likewise..." Frank said robotically. He shook his paw uneasily, seeing he had already been given a fake name.

"Let's talk outside," he said, walking his large form to the balcony door. Frank followed. What could this be? There was no apparent threat, but the coyote was on guard.

They emerged into the humid night air. There were two small, circular tables, one with a bottle of some kind of drink and a scotch glass on it. The lion poured himself some, then turned to the coyote.

"Would you care for any?"

"No, thank you," Frank replied, though he was not entirely sure he should be polite. Mr. Lennox seemed friendly enough, but Francisco did not appreciate deception.

The larger predator walked to the railing, and leaned his muscular frame against it. Frank took a position by his side. He was not tall enough to see over the railing, so instead grasped two bars and leaned through, to look upon the canopies below. He eagerly anticipated an explanation.

"I heard about what happened to you," the lion stated simply. "You were on the news."

"Yeah?"

"Just a segment on ZNN and a press release that you were alive. More than I would have expected," he ended morosely.

The coyote did not know what he meant, there was only silence.

Then the lion continued, "It's easier for society to feel pity for a little guy like you. Not so easy for them to shed tears for a big, powerful lion."

Was he speaking from experience?

A breeze ruffled the leaves.

"There's no greater weakness in a civilized society than a veil of strength and privilege."

Quite a proclamation. Frank did not bother to analyze whether it was actually true, but he was reluctant to agree. Small carnivores like him were often treated with suspicion and they got little more sympathy from their bigger brethren than from the prey. Coyotes did not have it as bad as foxes, weasels, or raccoons, but the point held.

Then again, with the Predator Attacks, no one would be held to more suspicion than a lion. The damage a savage lion could do was terrifying to think about.

There was silence. Finally, the coyote turned and asked assertively, "Why did you ask to meet me here?"

"We're not the Zootopia Police Department. We're a group of concerned individuals."

"I gathered," Francisco said dourly. "Concerned about what?" He did not like his questions being danced around.

"The violence that's been happening recently, and its effect on the relationship between predator and prey. You were victim of the kind of...indiscretion the attacks have led to." _No kidding._ "We thought you'd appreciate our goal."

"This is some kind of protest group? Mammal rights activists? Seems like an unnecessarily elaborate set up to bring me here."

David Lennox pushed himself up from the railing, to look the coyote in the eyes. "Hardly. We wanted you here because of your talents. You're a white hat hacker, correct?"

There it was, the call to crime.

Frank nodded, despite that he did not like where this was going. He felt like he was shrinking.

"You have experience...infiltrating networks of information. That's someone we need right now."

"If you're asking me to..."

"Have you heard of a corporation called AniTech?"

"No."

"They're a small and fast-growing...medical tech company. They develop many things to help mammals live more comfortably in the modern world. Hearing aids, pace-makers...But most recently an inside source has tipped us off about a disturbing project. Something that has been referred to as 'taming collars.'"

Taming collars? That sounded ominous.

"Worse, they may even be working with the city government to develop it. We want you to help us find out what this is."

That was a lot to take in. Normally Frank would have refused a request like this on the spot, but 'taming collar' sounded so threatening, and he had seen so much anti-predator hatred recently, he decided to inquire further.

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"You're the hacker, you tell me."

Frank sighed and looked back over the tree tops. This lion obviously did not know anything about hacking. It would not be as simple as going on AniTech's website and punching a few buttons.

"Chances are I'll need to get inside one of AniTech's offices to be effective."

"That's what I thought. That's why I think you and Wolfowitz would make an excellent team."

Wolfowitz? Rudy Wolfowitz?

He heard the female wolf, who Frank now assumed was his girlfriend, cackle loudly again from inside. Frank looked back at the lion.

"Team? Who is Wolfowitz, anyway? Was he the one who met me at the hospital?"

"Rudy Wolfowitz is a former ZPD detective. A hacker and a detective seemed like the perfect combination to dig up what's going on at AniTech. But I've known Rudy for years. With you, we took a chance."

"I didn't say I agreed to this!" the coyote shot back defensively.

David took another sip of his drink, as if unsurprised by the coyote's reaction.

"Like I said. A chance."

"And why me?" Francisco pressed. "There are plenty of more experienced people in the 'ethical hacker' business."

Mr. Lennox disengaged from the railing, put his drink down on the table, then came back and looked out again.

"It was more than your abilities we were interested. Your experience allows you to understand the gravity of our situation."

So that kick in the head had been a mark of fate, siphoning him to a gang of mammals who wanted him to break the law.

And he was actually going to consider the offer.

Right when he was supposed to be resting his brain.

 _Great._

Then the lion continued, "And don't sell yourself short, Francisco. You graduated from Albersten."

Frank felt more imposed upon than flattered. He felt small. He hated having decisions like this thrust on him.

The twenty-seven year old sighed loudly.

"I really need to think this through."

David propped himself up from the railing.

"Be my guest."

The lion turned to walk out. But then something popped into Frank's mind and he quickly turned to intercept the larger mammal.

"One more thing! What happened to the police officer who attacked me?"

The predator stopped, but did not turn to face him. "Nothing. The ZPD said he acted reasonably."

And then he walked back through the door, leaving the coyote with a callous silence.

 _"Nothing."_

Frank had not originally held any grudges, but could not help but feel offended at the news.

He got back to staring into the rainforest.

He had almost been killed. But in the eyes of Zootopia...predators were disposable trash, dirtied as they were by the sins of their ancestors.

He had been tricked into meeting with these mammals, and now they were asking him to break the law. That made him angry. But they were not the only ones who had done him wrong.

And they were asking him to break it in a harmless way: All they wanted was information. It was the consequences that could befall him that were really his reservation. He was fairly sure he could cover his tracks, but one never knew what tricks security or law enforcement had up their sleeves.

The door opened, jolting Frank out of his thoughts. It was the wolf this time, cigarette still in his mouth.

"Hi," Rudy said, offering his paw. Frank obliged reluctantly, and the wolf gave a hearty shake. "I assume Dave filled you in on...everything."

"Yeah. Quite the deception," Francisco said, tone neutral.

"Hey, we couldn't recruit you for illegal shit upfront."

The larger canine got to the railing, rested a paw, and puffed smoke into the humid night air. Frank turned back to the canopies as well.

"You do realize how serious this is, right?" Wolfowitz asked. Frank looked back at him. "For us preds?"

"I..." Frank had not really made up his mind.

"They've been chomping at the bit for an opportunity like this for centuries. A chance for vengeance."

"Vengeance?"

"You know what I mean. They think us preds are born with evil DNA, and do the damnedest to convince us of the same thing. They treat us like we're born with original sin."

He tapped some ash off his cigarette, into the abyss below, before continuing.

"Those plays they put on for school children? The guilt-laced textbooks? Nothing in those books about sloths eating their young or hippos killing each other over territory. Just the big, mean, scary predators feasting upon the poor, innocent prey."

Frank knew all too well what he was talking about. He remembered squirming through those as a kid.

Then his mind wondered back to an incident in elementary school. He was learning about how predators used to consider themselves superior to prey. Frank had raised his hands and told the class about how his cousin had been bullied by prey animals in Sandleford.

The teacher, a coyote herself, responded with "But you can understand that, right?"

Original sin.

But _these_ predators...understood things. They saw the world for how it was.

"They've conditioned us to hate ourselves. Now they finally see an opportunity to go in for the kill."

These were heavy words, heavy circumstances he hated having suddenly imposed upon him.

Frank felt both empathetic and uneasy. On one hand, Wolfowitz seemed a perceptive mammal. Frank had seen the same things in the world, even if he had never quite turned them over in his head that way. But Rudy also sounded like a radical. To imply the prey were 'going in the for the kill'...

The wolf tapped some more ash off of his cigarette. "If AniTech really is making 'taming collars', I can garuntee we'll all be wearing them in a matter of months."

A weighty statement. Rudy seemed to be letting his own fear and anger get him carried away. Sure some prey did not like them, but to put them in 'taming collars?"

Silence. Only the chirping rainforest insects conversed, as the coyote's mind stirred.

The wolf disengaged from the railing.

"I hope you'll accept our offer, Francisco."

Then he turned towards the door and left the coyote alone.


	8. Kings of the Jungle

Original sin, the taming collars, the nothing that had befallen the officer who had nearly killed him. Each idea washed through his brain and again and again like waves in the ocean, as he stared down at the damp leaves below.

He ran the potential consequences through his mind for the umpteenth time. Caught or not, there were worse crimes than corporate espionage. He would not spend life in prison. And he would not be so ashamed to have it on his resume.

And the thought of 'taming collars' was haunting indeed.

But they could not be as bad as they sounded, could they? And who was David's source? Maybe this was all a big nothing.

Still, with the recent events, he knew better than to underestimate how bad things could get.

Maybe going through with this would be idiotic. He would be acting on a small bit of information and a large amount of emotion. But it was still his choice how deep to go. Certainly there was little risk in just getting his feet wet. And once he felt he went in too deep, he could always back out. What were they going to do to him?

It was so unlike him to do something like this, it was so unlike him to commit a crime, but the odds of getting caught had to be less than fifty percent. Real hacking and infiltration could not be much different than his job, which so far he had succeeded in with flying colors.

Was it a coward's path to back out?

Or simply a sober one?

The door opened, jolting him out of his thoughts.

It was the lion.

"Francisco, I'm heading home for the night. What is your decision?"

Put on the spot like this, with no strong feelings either way, "I'll..."

He might not get another chance. They probably did not like wishy-washiness.

"I'll...I'll do it."

"Great," the lion said calmly, like he had predicted the outcome. It was oddly disconcerting. "Come into my office. We can exchange contact information."

The coyote followed, feeling a strange oily sensation all over his body at what he had just plunged himself into.

He might still be able to turn back...but only once, no doubt.

Back in the pool room, he saw Rudy and his presumed girlfriend had already left.

David Lennox opened the door.

The office had regal red carpeting and ridged mahogany walls. Ancestral spears hung in a display case behind the desk and chair, and to Frank's left hung a picture of lion royalty: King Afolabi, the founding father of Zootopia. The mammal who had uttered the legendary words that "Anyone can be anything."

The lion opened one his drawers, and took out paper and a pen. He began scribbling some things down.

Francisco's mind wandered back to the ancient days, no doubt instigated by David's choice of decorations. Before guns, before electricity, before _democracy_ , Dave's species had ruled it all. Lions and zebras were the first in the city, and the lion aristocracy had been in charge.

Maybe Mr. Lennox, consciously or sub-consciously, felt more stake in the recent events because of this. His mammals were used to being on top. But if the Predator Attacks continued, they would be on the bottom.

"There," the lion finally said, and walked back around his desk to hand Francisco the paper. "My e-mail, Zype name, and phone number. Are you free for another meeting tomorrow, around this same time?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. I look forward to discussing the details of our plan."

But the coyote was only half sure he really would arrive.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow," Frank said.

"Francisco..."

He turned.

"Research AniTech while you're away."


	9. Exhaustion

Francisco plopped down on his computer chair. He stared dumbly at the black screen. Riding back, he thought his mind would be buzzing. He thought he would be doing a lot of thinking once at home. Instead, he was exhausted. Overwhelmed.

Had he been foolish to give any credence to the worries of the predators back at the tavern? "Taming collars." They sounded bad, but they could be so many things, could they not?

Although if they really were working with the city government to develop them...

Maybe they were for the predators that were already foregone: the 'savages.' Mayor Bellwether was in charge now, and she seemed level-headed enough.

Though looks could be deceiving. Her history could have set her up to hold a grudge against predators. She and Leodore Lionheart had been bitter rivals in the Populist party mayoral primaries. Unsurprisingly, she had lost against him. How seriously could voters take a two foot tall sheep, especially juxtaposed with a big, majestic lion?

The press had hailed a reconciliation when she was appointed Assistant Mayor, but maybe she was still bitter about the loss.

Frank groaned. It was all too much to take in. He needed sleep.

He would research AniTech in the morning. He pushed himself out from his chair.

He took his cellphone out of his pocket. Left to his own devices, he would probably sleep sixteen hours with the weight of the day. But he wanted plenty of time conscious, to do his research and reconsider his decision to meet with the other predators.

He set his phone alarm for 9:00am...no, 9:30am...10:00am, and then placed it by his pillow.

He was not even going to bother with pajamas. He just stripped himself down to his boxers and an undershirt, and piled into the covers.

Lying down, his mind stirred over everything. _Taming collars. Mayor Bellwether. Rudy Wolfowitz. Original sin._


	10. The Comments Are Cancer

He stared up at his ceiling, mulling with echos of the tumultuous previous day.

He had woken up naturally, as was often the case when he set his alarm, but it was going to ring any minute now. Stress brewed in his gut, and he wanted nothing more right now than to fall back into sleep, and leave the burdens of the world behind in his dark and blissful void. This had all toppled on him as quickly and heavily as an avalanche.

But he had an obligation to think this all through.

To forbid further temptation, he forced himself up.

Vertical, falling back asleep would be a little harder.

Staring at his covered lap, he figured the first thing on his agenda would be to do that research. That would not require any thinking, and would provide a base for all the thinking he was to do.

And he might as well get it over with right away. He would have the rest of the day to brood.

He swung his legs around, pulled the covers off, and stood. He headed mechanically for his PC.

He sat down. He turned it on. It yawned as it booted up.

To think, he of all people was considering something illegal. Not that it would be much different from his job in practical application, but...

Francisco moved his mouse to the internet icon and double clicked.

He did not even bother reading the headlines, going straight for the search bar and finding AniTech's website.

The monster was revealed. A very innocent looking monster, of course. The page had a simple blue and white color scheme, the corporate icon in the corner, and a picture of a building serving as a banner on the top. Did they have more than one office? The navigation bar at the top read:

 **About Us. Meet the Crew. Job Opportunities. Products. Contact Us.**

Frank started with 'About Us.'

Skimming, he saw it was a relatively young company started in the Rainforest District by an ambitious young camel named Jeffery Spitz. Fitting with David's description, it seemed to be behind the development of chiefly agreeable medical technology: Pace makers, hearing aids, and advanced prosthetics...It emphasized how it employed and catered to mammals of all sizes, and boasted a robust rodent transportation network. They seemed to only have one office. No mention of any work with the government.

Nothing incriminating.

The coyote went over to the next link: "Meet the Crew".

On top of the list was the CEO, of course. A boastful profile.

Below was an Armadillo named Gregory Brigandine. He was head of the Computers and Technology Department. That could have some important information for a hacker. He read his profile.

But there was nothing about cyber security. Good.

Below him was a panda named Stephanie Bo, Head of Research and Development. The coyote skimmed. Nothing interesting

Below her was a lion named Dennis McGovern. He was Head of Marketing, and a predator on the roster! That was important, as David was accusing them of a plot against predators. But surely marketing would know nothing about that. He could simply be left out of the loop.

Scrolling down again, next came a hamster, head of the legal department, named Ali Sabbah. Francisco did not even bother reading his profile.

Below him was a jaguar named Marie Jackson. Chief of Security. She was their second predator. And as someone in security, she would be worth reading up on carefully. So he read her profile.

She was a ZPD veteran, but the coyote did not find anything about her experience against cyber criminals. That was good.

So that was AniTech. Expecting a humble little company like this to behind something sinister was...counter-intuitive. But looks could be deceiving.

Regardless, he realized he should not have expected anything on their website to turn him either way.

The "research" had been a nearly futile exercise. The answers as to what to do would come from within.

He decided to have a look at the news.

Heading back his homepage:

 **New Comedy 'Cheetahs Never Prosper' Smashes Box Office Records**

 **Scientist Proposes 'Food Contamination' Hypothesis To Explain Predator Attacks**

That second headline was actually encouraging. Zootopia might be healing at last. If so, he would not need to worry about any "tame collars" at all. Frank clicked, and decided to scroll right down to the comments.

The top comment read:

 **All preds should be caged!**

 **^74**

The coyote's hopes sank like a brick. Even after four days of peace, there was no sign of reconciliatory spirit. Hatred was fiery as ever.

This had been a mistake. The coyote's pulse had quickened. But knowing that the subsequent replies could not be any more offensive, he decided to see how others had responded. Maybe someone would give him a glimmer of hope for the mammal race.

 **STFU! Preds like me are paying for your free migrations and rehydration stations with our tax dollars! ****ing parasites.**

 **^4**

 **What does that compare to millions years of free meals?**

 **^18**

Frank's blood was pumping hard as-

Pain.

Splitting pain, in his head.

Coming in hard.

Punishing him.

He looked down, enduring.

Pain. His punishment for stressing, against advice of the professionals.

His body was not quick to let him forget his injury.

Finally, the hurt started to mellow out.

He was left back in the callous silence of his apartment.

He promptly x-ed out of the poison webpage.

That was Zootopia, after four days of peace. Not one shred of forgiveness.

The coyote knew now, he was going back to The Stained Fang tonight.


	11. Committed

Walking under the shadow of a world that hated his kind, Frank had come to The Stained Fang with a purpose and mission in mind.

 _All preds should be caged!_

The Predators Attacks had truly changed the world. Or maybe the prey had just finally decided to show their true colors, something that had been hidden under the surface decades. Now they felt legitimized. That is certainly what Wolfowitz believed.

There were the neon words: "The Stained Fang", glowing in a rusty red in contrast with the thick, damp, green nature that blanketed the district.

Finding the establishment had been a lot easier the second time around.

He opened the entrance. This time it was a lot more crowded, but he saw the same gazelle at the bar, albeit obscured by two husky, well muscled jungle cats at the bar stools.

Approaching, he seemed to catch her attention. "Francisco?"

"Yeah."

"Hold on just a second, please."

She finished with the glass she was washing and walked to the door while reaching into the back pocket of her tight blue jeans. She unlocked it.

How much did she know, he wondered?

Francisco entered, this time knowing the crowd to expect.

The scene he arrived at was much like what he had come to the night before. Two wolves at the pool table, the grey with a cigarette in his mouth and lining up a shot (though his wife beater was a lot cleaner this time), the white with a half-empty beer bottle in her hand, observing. But this time Mr. Lennox was standing right behind Rudy, and took notice of Francisco immediately.

"You're here," he said, then looked back at the other two preds. "Come, let's take this outside."

Another evening on the balcony, but this time with a lot less thinking and a lot more talking. He was committed this time. Frank followed. He was consciously complicit in an illegal conspiracy. He was becoming exactly the type of mammal he was paid to fight. But he felt no guilt.

As they emerged back into the humid jungle air, there was a bottle and scotch glasses waiting on the table. The lion uncorked the bottle and poured himself and the two wolves drinks.

"Would you care for any, Francisco?"

"No thanks, and just call me Frank," he said before the feline settled in his chair.

The white wolf eagerly downed a large gulp, before David gestured to her.

"Frank, this is Jamie Dogsbody. She used to work for the Tactics and Utilities Specialist Combine. She'll be helping us with this operation."

She smiled at the coyote.

"Former TUSC? We're really going all out!" Frank hardly felt like the star of the show anymore.

"If word of this 'tame collars' project proves to be accurate," the lion added soberly. "Speaking of which, our informant is on stand by during this meeting. I can text him any questions you see fit to ask."

"If it is a 'him'," Wolfowitz appended before downing his own large gulp of alcohol.

Lennox continued, "So I trust you've done your research on AniTech?"

It was like he expected the coyote to find something incriminating.

"I guess...Not much that's surprising. But they do have a couple of preds in their employ."

"That doesn't mean anything," the darker wolf growled. "We've been throwing our own kind under the bus for millenia."

Millenia? That comment unsettled Frank. What had happened more than a millenium ago, besides the decision to stop eating prey?

The more level headed lion put the conversation back on course. "We've scouted their main office already. Getting beyond the reception requires an employee number or ID card." _Main office_. That meant there were others. But...

"Doesn't your informant have an employee number?"

"He (or she) doesn't want to divulge any information that might compromise his or her identity."

That was an inconvenience, but Francisco had dealt with worse on his job.

"Well employee ID numbers are usually stored on the receptionist's computer. But I would need to get the receptionist away from the computer first."

"Do you have any idea how to do that?"

The discussion continued well into the night. The three canines traded questions and tactics they had learned from their professions, as well as trepidations. When it was done, the mammals had a fairly solid plan. Rudy and FranK would work together to crack the receptionist's computer, Rudy providing the distraction. Jamie would keep watch over the situation from afar.

They would make their move tomorrow morning, around ten, when the lobby would likely have the least traffic. Rudy had even agreed to pick Francisco up.


	12. Partners in Crime

Buttoning his khakis, Frank's attire fit the business casual look he was going for.

He and Rudy were posing as maintenance. Rudy would get the receptionist away from her computer, by asking questions. A distraction like that was not totally necessary, but keeping her eyes away from the screen would make his activities harder to report and trace, if she ever became suspicious.

He was becoming the hacker he lived to fight.

He went for the final piece of the puzzle: The little blue flash driving, hiding his custom tooled pieces of software.

The coyote was equal parts nervous and thrilled for his upcoming escapade.

Rudy should have been waiting in the parking lot. It would be his first time on the other side of the law as well. Or was it? A rough character like him seemed rather in his element in extraegal operations.

Wolfowitz was not the coyote's first choice of partners. His speciel-politics were disturbing at times. But their cause was morally pure: the acquisition of knowledge. So his politics seemed to matter little right now.

Walking to the door, he jammed on his merrells and exited.

Hopefully he would be sleeping in the Alcala Apartment Complex the rest of his nights. He knew there was a risk in getting caught. To think, innocent little Francisco Hernandez, up to something illegal. At least it fit the stereotype of diminutive canines.

Of course that meant if he was caught, he would be messing up his life _and_ boosting prejudice.

He trotted down the stairs, and then out into the opened the air.

Turning, he could see there were not many other mammals out at this hour. Only a bulbous hippo shared his sidewalk. Little did he know he was staring at an outlaw. Or rather, a soon to be outlaw.

Francisco had spent the last five years of his life pretending to be a criminal. Now he was going to try his hand at actually being one.

But all he was after was information. He was not stealing anything, nor interfering with any commerce.

Turning the corner, he passed the first shop he had patronized since moving to the city.

Suddenly, a police siren. The noise made him tense up.

A patrol car whizzed past.

They were not after him, of course. But Frank guessed he would have to get used to his anxious responses to anything police related, after his incident with that stocky pair of gray legs.

Or maybe it was his impending illegal act that had him on edge.

He turned into the parking lot.

Rudy was visible immediately, again dressed the part. He spent a lot of time in costume.

His car was surprisingly neat and sleek, red and shiny. But the coyote knew that was not part of the act. He just took better care of it them himself, evidently.

"You ready for this?" the wolf asked as he approached.

"Ready as I'll ever be," he replied somewhat sheepishly. He had never even been broken the rules at school. Not since elementary school, anyway.

The wolf entered the driver's seat, opening the passenger side door. The coyote entered, albeit awkwardly as the car was made for mammals twice his height. He buckled in, again rather awkwardly, seatbelt at his neck.

He could not really see much through the windshield. The clouds and the glove compartment would be his companions for most of this trip.

He felt the car pull back.

It seemed kind of odd Rudy had offered to pick him up, yet he did not seem the...tender type. And it was debatable if it was even a kindness, given his awkward fit.

They began a steady cruise down the road, shortly followed by a stop at what Frank assumed was an intersection.

Rather than just stare at the glove compartment for the whole ride, he decided to make conversation.

"So why did you decide to leave the ZPD?"

The wolf took a moment to choose his words. Frank sensed he had broached a sensitive subject.

"They don't want to investigate the real reason behind these pred attacks. They just to blame it on our evil DNA, like that bunny girl said."

That bunny girl?

There was a brief silence. A suspenseful silence.

"No one's ever actually witnessed a mammal go savage. Not the moment they turn."

What was he getting at? Frank knew this was either going to be very intelligent, or very insane.

"Someone doesn't want the city to know how its happening."

That certainly sounded like tinfoil hat territory. But given the mind-boggling anonymous hatred of his kind he had witnessed, he was more open minded to these ideas than usual.

"You're saying mammals are making preds go savage on purpose?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Those words hit hard. Frank did not like conspiracy theories, but he would hear this out.

He felt them stop at another red light. Rudy took the opportunity to take out a cigarette and lit it, the coyote hearing every little rustle and click.

The wolf puffed out some smoke. He was not elaborating, so Frank decided to prod.

"Do you have any...evidence?" he asked weakly. Although he knew what Rudy said was itself evidence. Yet evidence, of course, was a far cry from proof.

"A couple of the cases, where they got to the predators quickly, the responding officers said they saw blue spots on their fur. It's tough to get a look at a savage, and if some kind of toxins were absorbed into the body, whatever stained their fur could get absorbed into the keratine. But two preds with those spots? That's not a fucking coincidence."

That _was_ highly suspicious. Frank's spirit stirred uncomfortably. His heart was beating faster and harder than usual.

"The whole system's against us, Frank. First they author the em double i to dilute pred presence in the police force, then these attacks start happening? The prey smell blood in the water, and this is just the beginning."

Frank was trying to process the flurry of new ideas. He felt his body shake with a barely discernible tremor.

Were the Predator Attacks the result of some shadowy plot?

And worse, was this just the tip of the iceberg? Did the prey finally "smell blood in the water?" Were his kind really about to be bled dry for the sins of their ancestors?

They had been on top for so long, but this was a different age. An age of democracy and technology. An age where being big and strong did not mean much. Outnumbered nine to one, it would be no difficult feat.

But there was an inconvenient fact to throw a wrench in his theory: If this was some kind of government plot, why did it halt a few days ago?

"But...the predator attacks have stopped, haven't they?"

Rudy tapped some ash out the window as Frank nervously awaited his response.

"You know what I think?" the wolf said. "Someone disrupted their damn operation. You hear about that whole mess with Bellwether's brother and the train? The day Judy Hopps was killed?"

Something about it rang a bell, but-

"No..."

The wolf inhaled and exhaled a large puff of smoke.

The car slowed to stop at another red light.

"When you get home, Zoogle it."


	13. Secured and Compromised

Francisco had been mulling over Rudy's words in terrified silence the whole way. He had never been one to believe in conspiracy theories, but here the evidence was compelling. And it was not like this was the illumammalti he was talking about, the number of those in the loop could be fairly small.

Who was at the head of it? The natural suspect was Dawn Bellwether. She would certainly have the motive. She had, debatably, lost the primaries due to societal views of predator and prey, or more specifically lions and sheep: One born to lead, the other born to follow. That might have left her bitter and vindictive.

While Zootopia had made astounding progress in the last few decades, the prejudices of the old world had not been completely eradicated. But she had found a way to short cut social progress. If she could not make lions look incapable, she could at least make them look uniquely evil.

That was even 'better' than equality.

It all seemed a tantalizingly compelling theory.

Yet maybe Rudy was rubbing off on him. The corrupting influence of others was just one more reason he was always reluctant to make friends.

Judging by the turn and change in speed, they had entered the AniTech parking lot. These theories did not matter either way. Their mission here was the same. The time for thinking was over. The time for acting was now.

The wolf took some kind of blue tooth device out of his cup holder and put it on.

"Jamie, is the lobby clear?"

He could hear her muffled electronic voice on the other end.

Rudy looked to Frank. "Come on," he said gruffly, rising out of his seat and opening the door.

Frank exited as well, although with a bit less grace, given his size.

The building ahead was three stories tall, four in some segments, split into three sections with a modest indent in the middle holding a small welcoming plaza, with stone benches and a fountain. Trees divided the semi-ovular parking lot into two halves, and also flanked the sides of the building closely. They had cut away just as much rainforest as needed, no more.

Outwardly, this was like any other day on the job. But inside, he knew he had switched sides, becoming one of the black hats he was trained to fight.

Hopefully this buzz about "taming collars" would turn out to be nothing, so this would be his last time on the wrong side of the law.

But why would the informant lie?

Their feet transitioned from the asphalt to the stone tile, and Frank did his best to scope out what they were dealing with through the front doors. It was a large lobby with a high ceiling, and two doors at the opposite end. There also seemed to be some kind of auxiliary hallway on the left.

Opening them, feet transitioning to the smooth, checkered corporate floor, the female capybara at the reception desk immediately gave them attention.

"Hi!" she said crisply, looking to Rudy. Her eyes only briefly darted to the coyote. That was good. The less attention on the coyote, the better.

Wolfowitz began his schpeel, and the coyote tuned it out as he focused on the computer, the gateway to his mission. He thought about the software in his pocket, the challenge ahead. He was nervous, but he had to keep a level head, remember he had done things like this so many times before. Only the consequences for getting caught had changed.

He only waited for her to rise from the chair to begin.

Finally, she did, that sacred break, walking over to Wolfowitz upon his invitation to answer some outwardly innocent questions.

The coyote approached the desk to take her place, thinking about any potential gaze that could fall upon him, his heart beating hard.

He sat down on the chair, still warm from her bottom.

He was breaking the law.

As he reached the apex of his anxiety, a familiar pain emerged, that crack through the skull.

He closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to groan.

 _Damn it._ What a rotten time to have such a medical affliction.

It ceased its punishment quicker than the times before, but back in the realm of the well he realized it was critical to remain calm. Certainly that was a welcome imperative, if not an easy one.

He knew what he was doing, he just had keep his mind focused and mechanical. Block out the demons of fear.

The receptionist had some work up, some kind of spreadsheet. Frank immediately minimized, and reached into his pocket. He took out the sinister, little, blue flash drive, trying not to think about the broader aspects of what he was doing. He leaned down to plug it into the USB port.

It clicked. Step one, he thought with chest tight.

He lifted his head back to the screen.

He had three files. One allowed would allow him to use the computer remotely. That was the most important.

He dragged the first program out, placing it in an intentionally obscure folder, then opening up its properties and punching in the necessary fields as promptly as possible.

It was set. Simple enough. Even though he was the criminal now, the job was the same. Rudy still had plenty more of his Q&A left. The coyote was doing well. He had no reason to be fearful.

He went for the next program, the e-mail jammer. He copied it, navigated the erudite labyrinth armed with secrets only years of education could bestow, placing it where he needed and filled in the appropriate fields.

Two-thirds done. More than that, in fact: Now he proceeded for the final piece of the puzzle, the decoy anti-virus program. His arms nearly tingled with anticipation.

That was a simple drag and drop, into a rather unobscure location.

Then it was done. _Mission accomplished._

The canine promptly removed the flash drive and put it back in his pocket, a euphoria rising.

He smiled.

He grinned.

He jovially rotated the swivel chair, and put his feet crisply back on the floor. Wolfowitz was still deep in conversation.

"Alright, ma'am," he said, interrupting the wolf's questions. "Your PC should be secured." Of course, by secured, he meant compromised. The irony!

Rudy looked back at him. "Very good. Let me just wrap up here!"

But the coyote's part was finished. He walked towards the light outside, grinning like a fool. Some nervousness still fizzled in him as he knew he had just committed an illegal act, but he could call it a thrill at this point.

He opened the door back into the beautiful, sun-kissed morning.

He looked to Rudy's gleaming, red car. That is where he would wait for him.


	14. Conspiracy

A/N: Hi readers, or more specifically, Samguti. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

Nicholas Wilde may be coming back in the story. Currently I'm thinking I'll be writing much more than I initially planned, and making this story darker than it was originally supposed to be, to bring some closure to Bellwether and Nick's story arcs. There's a lot that's up in the air right now. I have got some pretty intriguing ideas bouncing around in my mind, but some of them feel a little...out there. Keep in mind, if Nick comes back, may get pretty damn dark. He killed Judy with his own bare fangs, after all.

A/N #2: Oh shoot. Apparently the black ram hanging out the window during the climactic scene was Woolter. Just gotta make a little change here...

* * *

The car slowed to a stop at another red light. Once Frank was back home, the next part of the operation would be much simpler. He would just need to wait, wait until the receptionist "logged off" her computer, then he would be able to search through her PC from his. It was an ingenious little piece of software he had crafted, creating the illusion of a log-off so he could snoop around. He had proudly first deployed it four months ago, on a job for Piggy Bank. Now it was a flaming sword in his hilt.

But he was an outlaw, this time. His parents would be horrified to find out he had committed a crime. Even if his reasons were somewhat sympathetic, there could not be a worse time and place to add to negative stereotypes about predators.

Wolfowitz seemed his normal self. The coyote could not shake the feeling this was not the first time he had participated in something illicit. He was shy to ask, though. Maybe he was better off not knowing.

Yet regardless of the topic, they had gone too long with out conversation, so the smaller canine spoke up.

"So are you and Jamie...together?" he asked, breaking the silence with a rather personal inquiry.

"Huh...oh, no. She's way out of my league."

He coughed juicily. Chain smoking probably was a turn off for females, although Frank had never thought about it before.

He added, "We met on a forum."

"A forum?"

"Yes," the gruff wolf said. "A forum. That's where I met David too."

That actually made sense. They seemed at least ten years apart in age. They would make a strange pair of friends.

Although Frank's instincts already told him the answer, he decided to ask:

"What kind of forum?"

The wolf puffed out some smoke.

"A forum for...like-minded mammals. Preds like us, who know the score."

He tapped some ash into his ash tray.

"What was it called?" The coyote might get a better feel for his fellows if he checked it out. Though he was kind of afraid of what he would find.

"It's...not around any more."

That was actually a small relief.

Francisco was about to ask 'Why not?' but it occurred to him Rudy probably would not know.

Silence followed, so the coyote got back to thinking in his own little world.

He was a little anxious, his illegal software sitting in the computer he had just left. But as his anxiety grew, so did something else to make him resolute against the fear. It was anger, in just enough quantity to peek over the fear. His mind kept going back to what he had read online.

What got to him far more than their bigotry was the perverse irony of it all. Zootopia had been founded by predators, lions specifically. The first vision in the history the world based on inter-species cooperation, universal mammal rights, and equality. The predators had welcomed prey into their society. They had legislated their equality.

And now that very compassion and respect was to be their downfall.

If the predators had kept the city to themselves, none of this would be happening. If the predators had kept the vote to themselves, none of this would have happening. If the predators had decided to be like every other nation before them, none of this would be happening.

The bovines of Moorocco and the sheep of the Baaahamas knew only peace and security, because they never strived for equality.

The lions did, and it was to be their undoing.

They had set the perfect stage to avenge the sins of the father.

Then he felt the car slow down, turn, slowly continue, and park. They had arrived.

Francisco inhaled through his nose, cutting out his heavy thoughts to navigate the real world.

"See ya," Frank said monotonously to Rudy, getting out.

Rudy did not respond.

Feet back on the asphalt, much of the day was still ahead. What a start it had been off to. Fortunately, the next couple of hours would be relatively relaxed, as he would simply sit by his computer and wait for the receptionist to go to lunch so he could search her terminal, get the employee numbers and read her e-mails, then send a report to the other preds.

To those on this street, he was the same coyote. But, he knew, now, he was an agent in an invisible war.

Or he was just an impressionable kid made to investigate a false alarm, set off by some jittery old predators. Maybe the "tame collars" were nothing. Maybe this would all fade away like a bad dream.

Turning the corner, the Alcala Apartments were ahead.

So much banality had passed through this side walk. Now he was a mammal with a mission, greater worries than his own entertainment. He knew a point would come when his existence was no longer whimsical. At least in his case it had taken longer than most.

He entered and headed up the stairs to his room: His safehouse, now.

Opening the door, he took off his shoes and headed for the computer, turning on his old friend for some new work.

It yawned, waking for its return to duty, as the coyote sat down.

First task would be to check if she had e-mailed her boss about their encounter, then impersonate him if she had. Next he would wait and watch to see when she logged off the computer to get lunch. But that would not be for at least another half our.

While he waited, he could research the incident with Bellwether's brother the wolf had talked about.

The computer awoke to the desktop. He clicked on the icon for his e-mail jamming program, but he saw no e-mail in his intercept folder. Good, she was a fool. He had encountered plenty of those doing his legitimate work.

He would have to wait to proceed any further. It would be at least thirty minutes before her lunch break. He could research what Wolfowitz had spoken about in the mean time.

He opened his home page, and typed into his search bar, " **Bellwether brother train Judy Hopps"** , tensing a bit in his chest at what he might find.

The first article was titled " **Details Come Toghether on April 27ths** **Strange Events.** "

Breath still, he clicked.

 **On Tuesday, April 27th, former Zootopia police officer Judy Hopps was found dead in the Natural History Museum, in civilian clothes, trapped inside a prehistoric meadow exhibit, killed at the hands of a savage fox. It became the latest known incident in a series of "Predator Attacks." Mayor Dawn Bellwether and her personal guard were the first at the scene. During this very same day, only minutes earlier, the brother of Mayor Bellwether was credited with averting a train collision, engineered by suspected terrorists. New details emerge amid confusion and conflicting reports, explaining the connection between the miraculous convergence of these three, and the tragic end to rabbit policemammal Judith Hopps.**

 **It turns out Woolter Bellwether, brother of Mayor Dawn Bellwether, had joined forces with the rabbit to make a citizens arrest.**

 **"I was on 35th street when I saw her following this fox," Woolter said, referring to former officer Judy Hopps. "At first I didn't realize she was following him, or recognize who she was, but then I was like 'oh yeah, it's that bunny officer my sister is always talking about'!"**

 **According to the ram, he became suspicious when the fox entered a derelict train station, and the young rabbit followed.**

 **"At first I was like, 'Well that's none of my business,' but then I heard some fighting. And I was like,** **'Oh no, I've gotta help that poor bunny!'"**

 **According to Woolter Bellwether, after he joined the fraucus, what followed was much chaos and confusion, resulting in the predator commandeering an abandon trained, with the two vigilantes on board.**

 **"We tried to pin him down and make a citizen's arrest. But before we knew it, he got control of a train car and we were all headed to God-knows-where!"**

 **The fox had locked himself in the conductor's cabin. "Me and Judy made a plan," said the ram. "She was like 'You try to break through the door, and I'll try to climb on top and go through the window."**

 **As was reported earlier, the black ram soon got his head stuck through the front window, but was liberated by officer Hopps just in time to flip the switch necessary to avoid a collision with another oncoming vessel.**

 **"My chest hurt like hell, but I was also like 'wow, thank God I saved those folks!' But then I was like, 'oh no, what's going to happen to that little bunny!?'"**

 **Judy Hopps was still on board, a murderous fox in her company. Woolter Bellwether knew the train was heading into Zootopia's Natural History Museum.**

 **The ram panicked, and immediately dialed his sister's phone number, knowing she was in the area, visiting** **Edmonton** **cemetery to pay respects to her deceased mother.**

 **"I was like, 'Sis, you gotta help Judy!"**

 **Dawn Bellwether abandoned her** **activities, immediately rushing to the museum with her two body guards in tow.**

 **But when the ewe arrived, it was too late. Judy Hopps was found dead, puncture wounds in her neck, contained with the fox, now clearly 'savage', in the Prehistoric Grasslands exhibit.**

 **"It was such a horrible scene! I am just glad no one else was hurt," the mayor said. "Officer Hopps was a wonderful mammal, and even if she had resigned from the police force, she still died in the line of duty."**

 **The fox was apprehended at the scene, muzzled and taken into custody at St. Duclaw's Asylum, one of two facilities in the city currently housing 'savage' mammals.**

 **The predator in question is believed to be Nicholas Piberius Wilde, a former acquaintance of the rabbit, who the officer had a falling out with during her press conference on the case of the fourteen missing predators. The nature of their relationship remains unclear.**

 **There is no consensus on the fox's initial motives. Though the predator was clearly lacking any semblance of sapience by the time of his capture, he clearly had some wherewithal before arrival at the Natural History Museum.** **Some theorize it began as a personal confrontation between the rabbit and the vulpine that escalated into an attempted murder-suicide. Others believe the fox had entered a state of minor psychosis prior to attaining a fully 'savaged' state. Still others theorize he was attempting to make a statement, dissatisfied with perceived unfair treatment of predators following the rise of "predator attacks."**

 **"I understand times are hard for both predator and prey, and its easy to lash out at one another," the mayor said. "I only hope this is the last we see of predator violence."**

'Predator violence.' The mayor's last words added a small dose of anger to his cocktail of vulnerability, fear, and ominous wonder. The coyote felt deeply unsettled. Most conspiracy theories he refuted easily. But that was indeed a strange story. What were those sheep hiding?


	15. Four Actors, One Story

A/N: I made a small mistake in the last chapter. The sheep who got stuck in the window was Woolter. Anyhow...

* * *

The coyote had been digging into all four characters: Dawn and Woolter Bellwether, Judy Hopps, and Nicholas Wilde, with an enslaved mind and boiling blood like he had not had since the predator attacks first reared their ugly heads.

With additional information, he had synthesized the tale as well as he could.

Judy Hopps had solved the case of the fourteen missing mammals, the original 'savages', discovering them at the decommissioned and secretly re-opened Cliffside Asylum. To solve the case she had enlisted the help of a fox named Nicholas Wilde. He could find little information on him or the nature of their relationship, but they had some kind of falling out at her press conference. The predator attacks continued. She quit the force out of what a police chief deemed 'psychological turmoil.'

Maybe she had guilt over her discovery, what it had meant for predators. That would be a refreshing change, to see predators get some compassion for once.

Regardless, at some point after quitting, she and the fox they had reconciled, or at least that seemed far more likely than the official story. Then they had taken it upon themselves stop the conspiracy? This was the major hole in the story. What had they learned? What were they trying to do that day?

For whatever reason, they had arrived at The Natural History Museum via a decommissioned train. Mayor Bellwether or her team "savaged" the fox to cover up whatever was there.

But what on Earth could Bellwether be hiding in The Natural History Museum?

Unless, of course, the fight in the train station actually had occurred as Woolter Bellwether described, meaning whatever they were hiding was in that abandoned train station, and their arrival at The Natural History Museum was just an accident. That would make sense, given Woolter Bellwether could not have planned to press the lever to redirect the train like that.

But apparently nothing was in the train station, or the police would have found and reported it (the conspiracy could not be _that_ deep). Nothing except Woolter Bellwether himself. Were the fox and the bunny after him?

He researched beyond the story, drilling into the actors themselves. Searching Judy Hopps had turned up plenty of information, but none of it unexpected.

The name "Nicholas Wilde" turned up nothing, aside from other mammals with the same name on Connected and MyFace, none of whom were foxes.

Then there was Bellwether. There was plenty on her. She had been the architect of something called the Speciel Diversity Act, precursor to the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. She had been a secretary for Tiger Clawton and campaign manager for Laura Swinton, as well as a member of town council in Woolford. But nothing even slightly incriminating.

Then there was, of course, Woolter Bellwether. He might as well have not existed before this incident. There was a passing reference to him being a college drop-out on a Liberty Party blog, but that was it.

The mayor apparently had two other brothers as well, William and Angus Bellwether, one of them whom was a veteran around the time of the Bay War, but little other information was available.

There was still more digging he could do, but not forgetting his primary task, he checked the program monitoring the receptionist's computer again.

This time, she had logged off!

It was time to get his head out of the murky labyrinth of news. The here and now needed him!


	16. Tamed Savages

He had completed the task at hand, scanning through the receptionist's e-mails since the beginning of April (most likely earlier than necessary, but he could not bare to leave a stone unturned). Deeply immersed in a conspiratory mindset, he had been quick and thorough. He saved the suspicious items, which he would forward to the lion. He had arranged them in chronological order.

He had confirmed the existence of the tame-collar project, and some more disturbing things: Government involvement (thanks to his research earlier he recognized the name 'Cliffside Asylum'). And 'test subjects', being shipped to the facility late at night.

Trying to get the employee numbers had led to a dead end, however. They were stored on another database, with its own lock and key. That would take some more time to crack. All the better, this was overwhelming as it was.

He looked over the e-mail he was sending David, subject line " **On the receptionist's computer** "

 **Here are three e-mails I found on the** **receptionist computer, and I attached a map of the facility. I couldn't get the employee numbers, that will take at least another day or two since they are stored on a separate database. But the "tame collar" project has been confirmed:**

 _ **From: JSpitz**_

 _ **To: EVasquez**_

 _ **Topic: Important Guests Tomorrow**_

 _ **A rhino will be arriving with the documents from Cliffside Asylum tomorrow, around 10pm. His name is Jameson Horne. Make sure to let him in.**_

 ** _(April 26th, 12:03pm)_**

 _ **From: MJackson**_

 _ **To: EVasquez, TFields, KSaburo, FNelson**_

 _ **Topic: Loose lips sink ships**_

 _ **Remember your confidentiality agreement. Given the volatile political climate today, its best to refrain from any discussions of what are currently being referred to as "Tame Collars", until we are ready to role out the product.**_

 _ **(April 29th, 2:09pm)**_

 _ **From: SBo**_

 _ **To: EVasquez**_

 _ **Topic: Test Subjects**_

 _ **Thank you for agreeing to work the extra hours. The first test subjects will be arriving around 10pm. We will be beginning tests with large predators. The first subjects will be:**_

 _ **Name: Alicia King**_

 _ **Gender: F**_

 _ **Species: Cheetah**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Name: Alexandra Petrova**_

 _ **Gender: F**_

 _ **Species: Brown Bear**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Name: Nathan Woods**_

 _ **Gender: M**_

 _ **Species: Tiger**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **Name: Leo Richards**_

 _ **Gender: M**_

 _ **Species: Lion**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **(May 2nd, 3:01pm)**_

The final e-mail disturbed him the most. The coyote then added.

 **Would you like to set up another meeting tonight?**

He hesitated briefly, wondering if he had forgotten anything. When his mind came up blank for a few seconds, he clicked.

The job was done. The intel was sent. It was out of his paws, for now.

His mind was all wound up. He would have to cool down for a break, soon, for his own mental health. But not yet. He would wind down gradually. He would do some more research before calling it a day.

He went back to his homepage, intending to look deeper into the information on the mayor. But instead a new headline caught his attention:

 **BREAKING NEWS: One of First Predators to "Go Savage" Has Made Full Recovery**

That title burned like a flare. Frank's mouth, eyes, and mind were all set agape in response to the remarkable title.

Frank could not say this was a game changer: preds recovering from their savage state was not going to erase any distrust. But it did change...something.

He clicked.

 **Barry DeCaprio, one of the first predators to become "savage", has apparently made a full recovery at Saint Duclaw's Asylum.**

 **The 43 year old computer programmer and father of two reportedly began showing signs of cognizance about twenty-four hours ago, gradually recovering full wherewithal since.**

 **Few details have yet been made available. The bear claims he has no memory of his "savage" state.**

 **"Judging by our records, it seems the patient's last memories refer to a period a few minutes before he entered the state of feral psychosis," said Doctor Layla Kreiger.**

 **New details continue to be provided, but currently the predator remains in protective custody, in case of relapse.**

Francisco's mind stared into the board horizons of fresh wonder. He had so many questions. How did it feel to recover? Had he killed anyone? Would he relapse?

This was certainly something he would have to follow closely, though he wondered how the 'savages' would feel awaking to this new world.

Especially those who had killed.

Then a little pop-up showed the coyote he had received a response to his e-mail. That was surprisingly quick. David had been right at his desk. The canine opened it.

 **That is indeed a disturbing confirmation. Precisely what we were looking for. Good work. Tonight would not be a good time for a meeting, however. Contact me when you've obtained the employee numbers.**

Frank felt a small measure of pride, and larger measure of relief. So much was stirring in his mind now, he did not want another meeting tonight. He needed a few hours of whimsical internet surfing and a good, long sleep to get his mind back into a stable state.

But before he did that, he wanted to wrap up his research.

He moused back over to the search bar.


	17. Cursed Existence

Regaining consciousness, the coyote knew he would not have woken up if his alarm was not about to ring. He wanted more sleep. He could sleep forever, given the roiling misadventure he was immersed in. His soul felt rough and worn. He had only noticed the extent of the damage upon taking a break.

But he had a duty.

He picked up his phone. 11:11. Four minutes before his alarm would ring, stabbing his ears.

Knowing he had a job to do, he used a bit of courage and sat up. He also deactivated his alarm.

He was cursed to be throw into all this. The Predator Attacks. The city turning on predators. His involvement with criminals. The whimsical life of just a few weeks ago was gone.

He wondered if the bunny officer, Judy Hopps, had felt the same way. Awakening from a fluffy world of accomplishment to find her own sense of duty throwing her into a dark world beneath the shining city, a world of swelling tides of conspiracy, dark secrets, old wounds, and racialized vindictivity.

If that was the case, _she_ had died for _them_ , the predators. A poignant prospect. He could not recall the last time he heard prey die for predators.

Voluntarily, that is.

That is assuming the conspiracy theory he and Wolfowitz now shared was correct. The e-mails he had read from AniTech certainly reinforced that view. _Cliffside Asylum._ The government had to be somehow involved. Was the city government forcing those things on predators really on the horizon?

It did not matter. He had a task at hand, a database to break. He wiped the sleep out of his miserable eyes, then rose.

He walked over to his kitchen cabinet. He did not have much of an appetite. He would pour a bowl of cereal and eat with his fingers while he got started at his PC. The one bright side to this was that he was probably losing weight.

He poured himself a bowl of frosted flakes, no milk, and then walked over to his trusty machine. What had been his primary portal to fun, was now a gateway to fear, anger, and burden.

He pressed the power button. The computer let out a whiney yawn as it booted up. The coyote sat down, pushing aside a used tissue as he put his breakfast upon the dusty desk. He hated the world right now. All its questions. All its distress. All its burdens. He could not wait until this all ran its course, and he sunk back into a relaxed life.

What would the city look like then?

Getting to the desktop, he saw it was 11:16. He still had some time to kill before the lunch break of the receptionist: not much, but some. He might as well check the news.

He clicked on the internet icon, opening his home page.

 **Wolf McQueen, Stephanie Stalkinew, Become Next Two "Savage" Predators Showing Signs of Recovery**

 **Outback Island Protest For Greater Autonomy Turns Violent, ZPD Officer Assaulted, 4 Arrested**

 **Mayor Bellwether Alleys Rumors of Plan for "Predator Ghetto"**

 **"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" Rhetorical Question has Kyle Lyon in Hotwater at Hayes University**

 **TUSC Units Deployed In Response to Palm Hotel Bomb-Scare Hoax**

The third title was the most disturbing. Frank did not click, though, as he did not want to get lost in fear and anger when he had a job at hand.

Fear, anger, and work! Those defined his existence right when he was supposed to be resting his brain! What a world!


	18. Lists

A missing back-slash? Could that be the only thing standing between himself and such an early victory?

 **/**

He hit enter.

 **Craig Alford 68831**

 **Buck Allison 56310**

 **June Al-Wardi 72740**

 **Lisa Antlerez 11266**

 **Diego Armadillo 02393**

 **Anthony Arthur 12105**

 **Wolf Bass 55257**

Bingo. The coyote copied the whole list.

Ctrl+A

Right click. Copy.

He opened his prepared e-mail, pasted and sent.

That was it, sending classified corporate information to an outlaw for the first time in his life. Now there was one more list he needed to nab.

His brain fizzling with alterness, soul slightly rattled, he went for the next piece of the puzzle: the employee logins.

Changing one word in the bar up top and pressing "Enter", a new collection was revealed.

 **abuck reindeerflotilla22!**

 **afoxworthy steph92!**

 **ahopkins jiggly999+**

 **aramirez badmallet123?**

 **asmith palomitas111!**

 **atombosa canyondrive7.**

Same procedure, this time pasting it in a word document. He saved, and the promptly exited the receptionist's computer.

Done. The information nabbed. His first heist, becoming the criminal he was trained to fight.

The quick resolution felt equal parts curse as blessing. It meant this was happening all the faster.

Francisco pushed his chair out, and looked down at his lap. What a burden on his psyche this had all been.

He lifted his butt from its well worn residence, went over to his bed and plopped himself down like a sack of hammers, resting a hand on his forehead.

He was in deep. He had conquered the second to last challenge, but in doing so put some incriminating evidence against himself on the lion's computer. His footprints were now on two foreign PCs.

He was a criminal. A rogue. The stereotype he and his fellow small canines all enjoyed. The sly fox, the trickster coyote...

It was all so rough on his soul.

But at least that meant it was not in his nature. He was a coyote, but he preferred honesty to espionage. He was a predator, but he was a lover, not a fighter.

He thought if the Predator Attacks had stopped, everything would be fine. Yet the prey held onto their anger, because it was birthed from something more than a few weeks of violence. The Predator Attacks were simply what gave them permission to spill it out, and now they realized how many like-minded individuals were around.

The coyote rolled over, the bed creaking. All those years of guilting predators had finally come to fruition. Predators had done nothing about the encroaching threat for all these decades, either weakened by their own shame or coaxed by a false sense of invulnerability. Now those who had once ruled the wild were about to hit the bottom, and the perverse irony was that it was all with their own permission. When King Afolabi first extended his paw to the tribal zebras who had raised his cub, and declared 'Anyone can be anything,' he had been digging his people's grave.

 _No good deed goes unpunished._

Predators had been the first hegemon in history to give up power willingly, and now they were going to pay for it dearly. Outnumbered nine to one, it might be too late for any hopeful resistance.

But he could not be so melodramatic. There was a world outside the city. And maybe observing a few decades of peace -

The beep indicated Francisco had received a response e-mail, quick just like last time. David was spending a lot of time in his office.

The bed groaned as the coyote rose.

He sat down and opened the e-mail, which, as he expected, was from David.

 **Great work, Frank. We're all going to meet at The Stained Fang tomorrow, around 10pm. Dress in business casual, so you blend in with the employees. Normally the office would be closed at this hour but they've got a small cabal of employees working overnight on the Tame Collar project. That's what our informant tells me. It's the perfect time to infiltrate the offices and gather information.**

He was really going to do this, and the very next day.

At least he was trained in this sort of thing, not just flailing in the dark like some other criminals. He had got good enough at his white-hat work that he avoided detection a good ninety percent of the time. Though, as a true outlaw, that ten percent could be oh-so damning. And this time was different. The number of employees would be low, and the office tense.

He knew only one thing: between then and now, he was going to need a lot of sleep, to cool off his tormented mind.


	19. The Pack

A/N: Attention readers, this chapter was released concurrently with chapter 18. Sometimes I do that. I just thought I should post this reminder because I noticed this chapter has far more views.

* * *

He had slept most of the hours between uncovering the employee information and this evening. His bed seemed to be the only place he could find peace, the sanctuary of soft covers and darkness, away from the ugly world outside.

In his pine green polo shirt and khakis, Francisco walked the damp planks with a sense of purpose. The first time coming here, he had been like a niave little pup, expecting a gracious interview with the city government. But he now knew the gritty, callous reality of the city. Now he was a soldier, ready to break the law. If the tame collars were as sinister a threat as the evidence kept pointing to them being, he did not know what would come next, but surely it would do some good to have the other preds prepared, by publicizing the information. The rest would be in their paws, the paws of his brothers.

To believe he was thinking in such terms! How far deep down the rabbit hole the week had taken him.

There it was, the glowing neon sign.

Frank opened the door. This time, befitting a week day, the bar was nearly empty. But the same gazelle was there, cleaning with a rag. She looked up at him, and did not need a word. She went over and unlocked the VIP lounge.

The coyote entered and trotted down the stairs. But arriving at the bottom, he saw no one. Yet he could smell the scent of freshly smoked tobacco.

It got stronger as he approached the balcony.

Frank opened the door, but only found the company of one. Wolfowitz, leaning against the railing, a cigarette in his hand, tip glowing defiantly against the humid night. He looked back briefly, but did not say anything, and just got back to staring into the canopies.

"Hey," Francisco said meekly.

The wolf did not respond.

"Where's everybody else?"

"Dave and Jamie are having a private discussion. They'll be done soon."

He took another drag of his cigarette.

"Alright..."

The coyote walked over the railing to join

Below, through the foliage, cars projecting their red and yellow lights as they rolled through the streets. Horns honked. Nature mixed with technology. The denizens of Zootopia were going about their business, oblivious to the concerns above.

Wolfowitz remained mute. Francisco decided to break the silence.

"So do you really think...what do you think those tame collars are?"

 _Tame collars. Christ._ The words sounded even harder to believe said outloud. How the world had changed. The dam had broken.

The wolf's cigarette crackled. He blew out some more smoke.

"Don't know. Whatever they are, I ain't gonna wear one," he stated with gruff simplicity.

Powerful words.

"Do you really think the prey would..." The coyote could not find the word. Only silence followed, as Rudy was not courteous enough to give him one. "...enslave us?" Not perfect, but a sufficient placeholder.

Engines hummed and horns honked below.

There was a small, painful silence, as the wolf inhaled some more nicotine.

"Why not?"

Frank was horrified by his flippant attitude.

"Could the prey really be that cold!?" the coyote shot back, swiveling his face in the direction of the larger canine.

"They won't hesitate," Rudy said flatly, not even looking back.

"But _we_ had compassion for _them_! Otherwise we would have never stopped eating them!"

The coyote realized this was the first time he had gotten emotional in front of the wolf.

Rudy disengaged from the railing and turned to him.

"Francisco, have you ever wondered why ten percent of the mammals were able to lord over the other ninety percent?"

The predators and the prey, he meant.

"I..."

"Pack instinct." His large fangs were visible as he enunciated, the queer choice of words cut the air with confidence.

"Pack instinct?"

"Empathy. It's in the nature of us preds. We had to feel for others to survive. That's our strength." A counter-intuitive and intelligent observation, in a world where they were essentially taught predators were born with a unique genetic predisposition to evil. There was a brief silence, only accompanied by the sounds of traffic below.

"So?"

" _So_ the prey don't have it. They won't feel any remorse when they put us under their boot."

The words were said with such cold and bold confidence. How could Rudy have such a harsh and totalizing view about his fellow mammals?

"Wolves used to kill coyotes! You don't see me holding any grudges!" the coyote protested pathetically, but immediately realized the error in his logic.

"Exactly. Us preds have empathy. The prey don't."

The coyote was taken aback by the horrible words, especially when they were said with such comfortable certainty. He felt like a child who had just been scolded.

"Our ancestors warned of this day, when we opened our doors to all the prey," the wolf snarled. "They were dismissed as bigots."

Yet as much as he hated what Rudy was saying, Frank remembered he harbored similar thoughts. Though he never thought of connecting them to-

He heard David and Jamie emerging into the main room, wrapping up their conversation. They had finished their meeting, and were walking to the balcony. The time for Rudy and Frank's chat was over.

The lion opened the door and greeted them both with a broad grin, but the Frank could tell it was not from the heart; His face looked tired and ragged. Maybe Francisco was not the only one psychologically taxed by all this. That provided a bit of comfort.

"Come on in, gentlemammals," the lion said. "We need to discuss the details of the operation."


	20. Culmination

The engine of Rudy's car hummed through the Rainforest District, passing many street lights illuminating deep green leaves and their droplets of water. The culmination of all their effort was coming up. His pampered, luxurious life had finally become like something of out of a movie. He had always wondered if and when that would happen. But the drama might be over after tonight. The best case was 'Tame Collars' were a paper tiger. Then he could let go of all this like a bad dream, or at least, not dig himself any deeper. He still had his footprint on one of their computers. In all his white hat work, he had never needed to worry about the long-game.

But even if 'Tame Collars' were what they sounded like, the rest would be out of his hands. He would still feel an emotional attachment to the phenomenon, but his time for action would be over.

So it could only get better after tonight.

Wolfowitz had not talked the entire way. Frank was fine with that, but he seemed to be smoking even more avidly than usual, probably to calm his nerves.

They were each armed with their own printed documents. Francisco held the list of passwords, several pages and stapled. Rudy had the map on his lap, each page representing one of the five floors, including the basement. They were heading in a different way this time, not the main entrance. Their first stop would be the office of Stephanie Bo, head of Research and Development.

The coyote could feel them turning into the back parking lot. They found a place close to the building, and the wolf put the car in park, twisted the keys, and took them out of the ignition. The engine's hum stopped, marking the beginning of their mission.

They got out, and Jamie was already out of her car: a white Zooyota. She had with her her own copy of the map and a small satchel. David, Rudy, and Jamie herself had not been very clear with Frank on what she would be doing, but her mission was in the basement.

They began heading to the back entrance, glowing like a a beacon in the night. Frank felt a small measure of pride as he remembered he was the one to gather the information they had needed to make this entrance, as well as the passwords to the computers. He was an instrumental player in something bigger than himself. He was just as mighty as any TUSC soldier.

The wolf punched in an employee number, and they entered cool, clean white halls of the corporate environment.

Their surroundings were plain, save for the colorful tubes that made up the rodent transportation hub about a yard ahead.

Rudy looked at his map. Jamie was supposed to enter the basement level, while the two males hit all the directors' offices they could (that automatically excluded the hamster head of the legal department, whose office would be too small for either of them to fit in).

"Alright, Jamie. You should be able to get into the basement taking a right down this hall and entering the second door on your left."

"Gotcha!" she confirmed, and began on her way. She no doubt looked the most conspicuous of all of them, so it was good she was heading underground.

Rudy turned to Frank. "Alright, it's time to check in on the lovely Mz. Bo."

The coyote nodded.

They got to walking. They were dressed like ordinary schmucks, but they were spies, infiltrators, undercover operatives.

The wolf pre-emptively took out his cellphone. He would be the one gathering photographic evidence.

They passed vending machines and chairs in a small lounging alcove. To their left, there was some kind of large window to another room. There was a familiar sound, some kind of machine. A treadmill?

The coyote rubber-necked as they passed. He caught a glimpse of a tiger, running stationary, with a collar on his neck. Francisco's gut clenched, and he heard the click of Rudy's cellphone camera.

Just as he exited view, he heard a yelp of pain from the predator.

Those were the Tame Collars. He was right in their chilling presence.

And there was Stephanie's office, poignantly adjacent to the horror. Rudy looked through the office window, then tried opening the door. It opened.

"Dammit, she must be on a bathroom break," he said. "It's too risky. Let's just head for Jackson's office."

That was quite a blow. She was their best opportunity for information.

Rudy looked over his map. His eyes scanned back and forth until he found his target. "Ah! There it is! C'mon."

They started walking, yet Frank was jolted out of his thoughts as a door further behind them opened. He turned. It was the tiger who had been on the treadmill, walking the opposite way, crimson polo shirt and jeans, but this time he seemed to have no collar on. After few steps, the feline halted, and reached into his pocket to take out his cellphone, and began texting.

Wolfowitz pulled Frank by his arm.

"C'mon," he grumbled. "Don't draw attention to us."

Francisco got back to following the wolf, but he had been entranced by the sight. Yet, why did it surprise him? Did he really believe AniTech was kidnapping and experimenting on mammals against their will? An uneasiness started to roil in him. How much foolishness had polluted his mind?

They took a right, then a left, passing a goat in a lab coat, then another right. Ahead was another rodent station, a mouse in a business suit riding up one of its elevators.

Passing the tubes, Wolfowitz got to the door immediately following it, looked inside, and tried to open it again. It was locked. Jackson's office was ripe for picking, figuratively and literally; Rudy took out his lockpick.

"Remember, keep a look out," the wolf said. "If someone's coming, distract them like we talked about."

But there were three potential directions a mammal could emerge from, not counting the rodent tubes.

"Is it really that important for Jamie be in the basement? We could use two-"

"Yes," Rudy cut him off. "She has a job to do. Now keep your eyes peeled."

Rudy began without another word. Frank was bit annoyed with his dismissiveness, yet he would not argue because that would only invite more attention. But anxiety became his paramount emotion. He power-walked back and forth down the hall to check the corners they could emerge from.

The number of employees who had stayed overtime seemed few and far between, but their possible points of entry were copious. That was the real problem.

For all his work as a fake felon, he had never done anything this blatant.

At the click, tension lifted and a small euphoria took its place.

Wolfowitz entered the office, holding the door for Frank, who quickly followed in tow. Jackson's office was an unremarkable white room with a plant in the back left corner and a picture frame on the desk, but there was their first computer, their first treasure chest.

The wolf closed the door behind him and the coyote hopped on the computer chair.

Password list in hand, he rehearsed the song in his head:

abcdefghijk

l

m

He scanned through the L names down to the M names:

 **MBull**

 **MCattro**

 **MCollins**

 **MHeath**

 **MJackson**

Bingo.

 **MJackson**

 **waffleland99!**

The coyote typed in the password meticulously and hit 'Enter.'

It started loading. He felt a bit of satisfaction, knowing it was his hacking that made this possible. When desktop appeared, he immediately went for the e-mails. The first three were titled:

 **Nevermind, found the report!**

 **Employee number reset bug**

 **Reginald Hopkins still has not received employee number**

Scanning further down, one caught his attention:

 **Visitor From The City Government**

Frank opened it.

 **From: JSpitz**

 **To: MJackson**

 **Topic: Visitor From The City Government**

 **A representative of the city government, Jameson Horne, will be arriving tomorrow. He is sharing records from Cliffside Asylum with our scientists and should be given full access to everything on the premises.**

Rudy was leaning in rather obtrusively to read. After a few seconds, he made an ambivalent grunt and took a photograph.

The coyote tried typing "collars" into the search bar for something juicer.

 **Full List of Employees Staying Late to Work On Collars**

That did not seem like useful information for their purposes. Except, it might tell them whose offices they could not check out. Frank opened it. It was alphabetized by first name. Stephanie Bo was on the list. So was Gregory Brigandine, but none of the other directors.

So only two directors were left. But one of them was Jeffery Spitz, the big wig; that provided the coyote some relief. He should be the next target, after they finished with Jackson's emails.

He tried the sentbox, same procedures, but only found the message he had read on the receptionist's computer. Wolfowitz, however, seemed to find that promising, and snapped a picture.

Concluding, Frank said, "Let's head to Spitz' office. He's on the second floor, right?"

The wolf flipped a page in his packet and scanned his map. "Yes. And the elevator for us big guys is right down the hall."

The coyote hopped off his chair. They had managed to find _something_ , but the information was hardly the catch that would punctuate their search. Either way, he had not expected much from Marie Jackson. Jeffery Spitz should provide juicier information.

They exited into the now empty halls. Frank was starting to wonder what would become of Wolfowitz photographs, after they were done here.

They pressed the call button and entered the elevator. Wolfowitz pressed '2'.

As they ascended, Frank thought back to the tiger he had seen. He was walking the halls free, texting. He could have been telling his wife about the collars for all they knew. How much of a secret were they? Did they really intend to put them on...all the predators? If not, who?

They arrived on the floor with a ping. They stepped out. Rudy looked at the map, and headed right.

"Should be the fifth door he muttered," he muttered.

As they walked the soulless corporate halls, coyote could not help but feel he was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. Maybe this next hack would fill that piece. They should probably have hit _his_ office second. He was the Alpha and Omega of the company, after all.

How would his fellow predators react when the photographs were publicized. Was it fair to show the tiger in the collar, but not his freedom that followed less than a minute later? Even though they were just two mammals, their actions here could have earth-shaking consequences. Did he really want to see the pot stirred? Could he bare that responsibility in good conscience?

The wolf looked in the door. He tried yanking it opened. It was locked, as expected.

"Same drill," Rudy whispered.

Although not entirely comfortable with the procedure, the coyote still did his job. This might be the last door they needed to crack, if their golden nugget awaited inside.

He could imagine finding full details on the product on Spitz' computer. They should have checked this office second. The entire planning for this had been somewhat haphazard. However, thoughts of the information they were about to access were quite appetizing.

Then came the beautiful click, and they both entered in the chamber of the most important mammal in AniTech. As befitting the CEO, the office was a bit bigger and more decorative. Two plants, a book shelf, a diploma on the wall, two chairs off to the side, and a painting of the desert hanging above them. It even had its own system of rodent tubes.

The chair was a bit more regal looking too. Francisco headed to the computer as Wolfowitz closed the door behind them. His butt was about to grace the same seat as the head of this corporation, something he had never done in all his white-hat work.

Frank looked down at his list of passwords.

abcdefgh

i

j

 **IRogers**

 **IWolfmuehler**

 **JAl-Wardi**

 **JGould**

 **JHowely**

 **JMill**

 **JMindanao**

 **JPigsby**

 **JRodriguez**

 **JSpitz**

And his password:

 **Fidelis23!**

The coyote typed the password. He pressed enter. It loaded. He softly tingled in anticipation.

The camel had a unique desktop background, a picture of his family (one wife, two children just entering their double digits).

Again, Frank went right for the mail.

Opening up the inbox, there were messages about all sorts of products and a lot of business jargon. He typed "collars" into the search bar.

Several pieces showed up.

 **Re: New Product Meeting**

 **Re: New Product Meeting**

 **Re: New Products Meeting**

 **Re: Proposal from the AniTech Corporation**

That was somewhat disappointing. He expected a richer plethora of information. However, the last one sounded promising.

Yet being his methodical self, he clicked the top one first.

 **To: JSpitz**

 **From: SBo**

 **Topic: Re: New Products Meeting**

 **Roger that!**

The referenced e-mail read:

 **From: JSpitz**

 **To: GBrigandine, SBo, DMcGovern, ASabbah, MJackson**

 **Topic: New Products Meeting**

 **In light of the recent slew of Predators Attacks, we have an important new product to work on. Come to room 224 for a meeting at 4pm, tomorrow.**

Not very useful. Frank gave Rudy some time to read it over, but he seemed to agree. " **Re: Proposal from the AniTech Corporation** " was the real gem, so he hit back button, typed in the same search query, got the same list, and clicked on it.

 **From: BNutler**

 **To: JSpitz**

 **Topic: Re: Proposal from the AniTech Corporation**

 **We can talk tomorrow. Call me at 2:00pm.**

The referenced e-mail read:

 **From: JSpitz**

 **To: BNutler**

 **Topic: Proposal from the Anitech Corporation**

 **Hello, my name is Jeffery Spitz, CEO of AniTech, and medium sized company that specializes in medical technology.**

 **I was told you would be the best person to contact about this proposal. In light of the recent Predator Attacks, my company has proposed creation of a new line of products, which have currently been dubbed "Tame Collars" and "Shock Collars." Neither names are very attractive, so we are working on others.**

 **Using our previous products, we should be able to repurpose existing cardiac technology to deliver an electric shock to potential "savages" upon rapid accelerations in heart-rate, measured through the carotid artery.**

 **These may prove a key asset to continued to peaceful co-existence of predators and prey in Zootopia in the near future. However, I would like to discuss the details with you in person, or at least over the phone. Please give me a good time and means to reach you.**

This was a juicy catch. They were something so simple. No wonder they were being developed so rapidly.

Rudy obtrusively put his camera right in front of the coyote and snapped a picture of the screen. He looked at it himself. "Nice," he muttered.

The coyote, however, felt a bit disappointed that there was not more. Francisco checked the sentbox, with the same search, but found nothing of promise.

After Bo, Spitz was their best bet for information, but information was scarce on this project. The real question is how did they possibly think they could impose these on predators? That was the most crucial piece of information. Something was clearly missing.

There was only McGovern left, as far as directors went. McGovern was head of marketing. He might provide some answers. But there were two problems: First, if these Tame Collars were so sinister, why would a predator (two, counting Jackson) be left in the loop? Second, why would they be advertised? Unless "marketing" was defined more liberally than Francisco had originally assumed.

Francisco would have to see. That lion might be his closure.

"McGovern is the only director left we can check up on. He's head of marketing. You want to go there?"

Wolfowitz flipped a page on his map.

"McGovern's office is just above us."

"Alright, let's go."

Frank disengaged from the computer, feeling uneasy at the mysteries standing before them, and the scarcity of information on the project. It was like the collars were not even important to them.

Back in the empty and sterile halls, they headed for the elevator they had previously used. The silence seemed judgemental. He had come here a soldier, but now felt like a fish out of water.

They got back in the elevator. Wolfowitz pushed the button.

They ascended, and the coyote's thoughts wandered.

 _Ping._

They arrived. Wolfowitz pointed leftwards.

They began their march.

Frank felt fluctuating confidence the lion would provide the final piece of the puzzle. There were still hundreds of other computers behind these countless doors, though trying to find information that way was much less attractive. Most employees undoubtedly did not even know about the collars.

Arriving at the office, Rudy took out his pick, same procedure. Again the halls seemed empty, but Frank kept his patrol brisk and vigorous. And he remembered what Rudy said about making an emergency escape. Hopefully this would be the last time he would need such stark vigilance.

There was the click, the chime of their success. He followed Rudy inside. Dennis was a more decorative type than any of the previous executives. A painting of an eighteenth century town hung in the back of his office, he had a plant not unlike Jackson's, and he had an antique looking snow-globe on his desk.

The coyote sat down. He looked down at his list, at the Ds.

 **DArmadillo**

 **DBiggs**

 **DGroomington**

 **DHidayat**

 **DLittle**

 **DMcGovern**

His password:

 **MareBear781!**

The coyote typed it meticulously and pressed enter. It loaded.

His desktop was artsy as well. It looked like a Van Gopher piece.

Frank went right for the e-mails. Opening the inbox, the second one down immediately caught his eyes.

 **Re: New Name For Collars**

He double-clicked.

 **To: DMcGovern**

 **From: KFeilds**

 **Topic: Re: New Name For Collars**

 **Here are some of the new names we came up with. Tell me what you think:**

 **Safe Collars**

 **Protective Collars**

 **Peace Collars**

The referenced message read:

 **To: KFeilds**

 **From: DMcGovern**

 **Topic: New Name For Collars**

 **Hello Kelly,**

 **As we prepare to the role out our product, we definitely need a name change. 'Tame Collars' sounds demeaning to predators. I want your team to come up with a name that will make them feel more comfortable purchasing them. Send me a list of 3 to 5 of your best suggestions by the end of the tomorrow.**

 **Thanks.**

'more comfortable purchasing them.'

The coyote was taken back and disarmed by the words. Predators themselves were supposed to buy the collars?

It was Rudy who broke the silence. "The preds are supposed to purchase them ourselves? That makes no damn sense," he growled.

Frank read it again.

 **As we prepare to the role out our product, we definitely need a name change. 'Tame Collars' sounds demeaning to predators. I want your team to come up with a name that will make them feel more comfortable purchasing them. Send me a list of 3 to 5 of your best suggestions by the end of the tomorrow.**

No, it did not exactly say that. 'Them' could the the government, trying to keep a clear conscience. But that seemed like a stretch, like he was making excuses to hold onto his paranoid narrative. He felt unsettled.

He tried to search "collars" again, but found nothing new, in the inbox or the sentbox.

That was all the information offered to them, those tiny scraps.

There was a brief, weighty silence. There was a growing, ominous feeling he was wrong for ever coming here, that he had gotten foolishly whipped up in a frenzy because of a bad encounter with the police and some prejudicial assholes on the internet. All that provoked him into _breaking the law_.

What were these collars _really_ for? After all they had done to get in here, he still felt obligated to find out.

Frank finally asked. "Where do you want to go next?"

The wolf did not answer immediately. He looked down at his map, and studied it in silence.

"I have a place. C'mon."

The wolf took the the snow globe from Dennis' desk for reasons known only to him and got to walking. Rudy turned left out the door. Despite being clueless at the source his and inspiration, Frank followed.

Why would predators themselves buy such collars? Still, was such a notion more outlandish than a government plot to put it around on all their necks, and more outlandish than a jaguar and lion assisting with such a plot?

Even as their distance from McGovern's office grew, Frank's mind remained tethered to what he had read.

Frank realized Rudy seemed to be heading for the roof access, which was directly ahead. Did this have something to do with their escape? He recalled something about the roof tops mentioned during their meeting. He had been rather vague about it, though. And what on Earth could the snowglobe be for?

He put down the snow-globe and took out his pick. He began picking without even so much as a warning. Frank was a little annoyed, and immediately pivoted to look behind them, but the halls were empty.

Wolfowitz seemed a lot less worried about getting caught than the coyote. Frank got a feeling he had a hot-headed, impulsive streak that no one wise would ignite.

The click came soon enough, and Rudy opened the door while placing the snow-globe as a door stopper.

He turned back to Francisco. "Escape route," he said simply. Then he added "C'mon." He started marching back the way they came. Apparently he had another location in mind. Frank followed, mind filled with curiosity.

Frank dearly hoped they would not need such an escape route. They had avoided detection so far? Was Rudy about to try something particularly risky? If so, what?

They took a left, then another right in quick succession, down the lonely halls.

Ahead there were a couple of double-doors, spaced far apart, and another rodent station.

A rabbit in a lab coat came out the nearer set of door. He was carrying one of the collars.

Wolfowitz sped up his stride and looked side to side rapidly. What was he-

The wolf grabbed the rabbit by mouth. He dropped the collar and the coyote's mind burst into panic! He began dragging the hare, kicking and screaming, across the hall, towards the bathroom.

Frank's mind furiously tried to analyze the situation. What the hell was Wolfowitz thinking!? They had managed to get this far without blowing their cover, now he had compromised them!

They disappeared into the lavatory, and Frank followed.

"Rudy, what the-"

"Shhhhh! Both of you. I want some answers, little bunny."

"Take your paws off him!" the coyote commanded.

"I will, once he shuts up."

The rabbit continued his muffled screaming. But when it was clear to both of them that would get him nowhere, he quieted.

"Don't...say...a word," Rudy warned, before slowly and gently peeling his paw from the rabbit's mouth.

Frank braced for the rabbit to start again, but he did not. As soon as he was fully free, the bunny fell to his knees, coughed, and panted.

This was surreal. How could Rudy be so foolish? The operation was going so well, and he had screwed them over. The bunny finally looked up at his lupine assailant. "What the _hell_ was that about?"

Rudy's angry stare seemed to answer it for him. "Is this about the collars!?"

"Yes," Rudy said, his voice low but sharp. "We want answers. What are these Tame Collars!? Who are you selling them to!? Where are they being manufactured!? How do you plan to get them on all us preds!?"

He was this impatient for information!?

The bunny slapped his paw upon his face and then slowly dragged it down in frustration.

"The 'Tame Collars' are nothing more than a way to monitor a predator's pulse and give him a shock if it accelerates too rapidly! No one would be forced to wear them!"

"Bullshit! You expect us preds to put on your little slave collars by our own choice!?"

" _No one_ would force you to wear them! You would dawn them by your own free will, so others around you could feel more safe and comfortable!"

That made a sense. A very disturbing amount of sense...

"That's what you say now!"

Frank was unsure where his loyalties lied, now. The AniTech employee sounded far more reasonable than Rudy. None the less, he decided to ask, "Why the secrecy, then? Why not let the public know about the project?"

Part of him hoped that would be the 'gotcha question' to reassure him of the righteousness of their mission.

"Are you kidding? Look at you two!"

"I-"

 _Jesus_. He was right. What a fool Francisco had made of himself. The corrupting influence of others had seemed like a feeble excuse to be a hermit, but look at what it had done to him, what it had got him into!

The rabbit continued, "The political climate is too sensitive and-"

There was a buzz.

It came from Rudy: His pants. His phone.

Keeping his claws protracted and fangs bared, the canine reached into his left pocket. He took out the device and read a text.

Both Frank and the bunny watched in wondering silence.

"It's done," Rudy said matter of factly. He looked back at Frank. "C'mon, Francisco, it's time to wrap up here and get the hell out of here."

"What's done?"

Wolfowitz rose to his feet. "You'll see."

He began walking towards the door, his expression hard and heavy as stone. Frank did not like this one bit. His world had shifted.

He stopped in front of Francisco, who was inadvertently guarding the door. "Step out of the way!"

The lupine's presence was intimidating. Frank did not like where this was going, but knowing a coyote was no match for a wolf, he seceded his ground.

Wolfowitz stormed out of the bathroom, and the coyote followed briskly in tail. He seemed to be heading for the colorful tubes. He reached into his right pocket and took something out.

Rudy stopped at the rodent transit, and kneeled down to press the call button. Frank noticed his lighter was in his hand.

"What are you doing?"

No response. A surge of worry and anger came upon him.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?"

The wolf did not response. Whatever it was, it was bad. The coyote's instincts kicked in.

He ran to tackle the wolf, determined to stop him, whatever the consequences. But as if fully expecting the move, Wolfowitz turned and struck him across the face.

Frank was knocked off his feet and skidded back. He could hear the elevator arrive, the lighter being lit, and then got to his feet right in time to see the lit device being placed in its pod. The wolf pressed the button to send it down.

Rudy turned back to him, fangs bared. "Don't believe that fucking bunny! What they are setting in motion here- we'll all be wearing those collars!"

"What the _hell_ are you doing!?"

Instead of answering, the wolf ran.

Driven by furious instinct, the coyote bolted after him. He was heading back the way they had come.

Frank pushed his little feet to their limit, but Rudy's greater size made him faster. Rudy turned the corner, then the other.

He seemed to be heading for the roof access, intending to make an escape.

The distance between them was growing; Not surprising, as the wolf was twice his size. He was indeed heading for the roof access.

Wolfowitz burst through the door, running past a ventilation unit and then stopping at the edge. The door drifted closed again, until it hid the snowglobe, robbing Francisco of his view. But he would see the wolf again. He must. He charged with all the fury his little form could muster.

The coyote burst through the same door, feet pounding the gravely roof and humid night air, but Rudy was gone. Frank's gaze darted both ways, but there was no sign of the larger mammal. The coyote ran to look over the edge.

There were copious trees and branches below, and -

A loud boom behind him startled him off his balance. He fell, screaming as he descended. But a tree branch was in his path. He grabbed it hard.

It bent and splintered slightly, his gut going numb. But it did not break, and the coyote shimmied his way up to a thicker section.

It became his saving grace. He saw some clawmarks next to his: Wolfowitz. He had used the same branch.

But what had that boom been? Was that what the lighter had been about? Was that explosion his doing? Did they just...bomb the building?

This was all overwhelming him, terrifying questions coming at him like angry hornets. His physical fall had been accompanied by a metaphorical, much more damning one.

The coyote looked around. There was no obvious path to the ground. He had descended about a story and had a story to go. A fall from his height would not be fatal, but it could hurt. Either way, he cared little for his own safety and well being now, only thinking about what horrors he may have left behind.

He apathetically let go and plummeted. He descended through the air and then hit the dirt, his legs caving against harsh gravity and his butt hitting the ground painfully

Rudy emerged from the shrubbery, now a totally different mammal.

"What the hell did you do!?" Frank demanded from the demon in front of him, the canine he had once considered a comrade.

"I just sent a powerful message. Predators will _not_ be tamed."

Everything had changed so fast. His old life was gone in one viscous minute. He had passed a point of no return, to a new ugly and inescapable reality. Francisco could not even imagine how these would feel when it all sunk in.

"Sent a fucking message by blowing up prey!? Predator and prey alike!? You just bombed the fucking building!"

Rudy remained cold and collected, only a hint of anger simmering over his speech. "We have no future among the flat-tooths! They think we're born a crime. The bovines have Moorocco. The stripes have Zebrawe. We need a place of our own."

"And you think you can get that by blowing up a building!?"

"Peace between predator and prey was a fever dream. Zootopia is a failed experiment. We need separation. Two-thousand and the prey still can't get over the past."

All this rhetoric, what Frank had before regarded with either passing agreement or a minute headshake, was now soaked in blood.

Rudy inhaled an angry, husky breath. "Us preds are the authors of everything beautiful in this world. Imagine what we could accomplish with a place all to ourselves! No diversity quotas, none of the weak holding us back-"

"You're insane! All of you!" To think the blood of such a mad-mammal's act were now on his little paws.

"It may be ambitious, but with pressure on the right mammals...but you're not on our side, any more, are you?"

Francisco did not know how to respond. He felt like he had witnessed and avalanche, and was now trapped under a hundred feet of snow. He did not know where life would go from here, only that it would never be the same.

His speechlessness betrayed him. The wolf picked up a large, thick branch. He advanced and the coyote clumsily scrambled to his feet. But he was too slow. The wolf swung from his head. Frank closed his eyes.

The hard impact was immediately followed by his face against the dirt. He opened his eyes, and Rudy was gone.

He had been knocked out. Not for more than a minute or two this time, but his poor battered brain dealt another blow.

Frank rolled over and tried to prop himself up, but a splitting pain cause him to cry out and fall back down.

All that he plunged himself into, the irredeemable consequences, the souls he had sent to oblivion, it all came back to him with an overwhelming nausea and he puked, dumping the acerbic contents of his dinner callously upon the manicured company grass.

He had fallen into hell, the world was crumbling apart around him. He had had a chance at a peaceful life and scuttled it in a bout of anger and paranoia. Now his soul was forever scarred. He did the only thing he could think to do. He reached into his pocket and fished out his phone, intending to dial 911.

But just as he entered his passcode, he could already hear approaching sirens.


	21. Predator Tears

The gentle patter of raindrops seemed to symbolize the tears of the evening. Just an hour ago, this same night, he had been so ignorant, ignorant of what he was really playing a part in. But this night had changed, ruined, his life forever. And ended several others.

Mesh separated him from the two officers who had picked him up (with his eager compliance). Driving was a hippo named Pinkerton, and his subordinate was lion officer Assad.

One was a predator, the other was prey, but they were working together to protect the city: a far cry from times past, and maybe times future. He had told them why he had come here, what he had suspected. Whether they were sympathetic to his plight, he could not read their faces. He had told them the truth, everything. They had kept their professional cool, informed the station he was coming, but he still wondered if they believed him. He had shed plenty of tears during the story, which he was grateful for, but who knew what was simmering in their minds.

Francisco could see they were about to pass under the mighty climate wall, what separated them from this fateful district.

Passing under the behemoth, the copious trees were soon replaced with copious buildings. This was the Savannah District, his home since coming to the city.

He had come to the AniTech offices in fear of the Predator Guilt Apocalypse befalling the city. The perverse irony was that he may have fulfilled his own prophecy. The wave of anti-predator animus would have fizzled out on its own, but now he had kicked it back into action with his act of terrorism.

How many lives had they taken? He had yet to find out.

What a fool he was. The trickster coyote, tricked.

What would become of those photos Wolfowitz took? Would the other predators react as irrationally as he had? He hoped not. How much more chaos and destruction would follow this? When would it end? For once, his actions had effected not just himself, but others in a most tremendous way.

He could see a tall building ahead as the police car slowed to stop. The hippo put the car in park. He was fairly certain this was the city hall. Was this where they also had the police department?

The hippo got out, then the lion, and the lion opened Frank's door. The coyote got out and they took formation, the feline behind him and the hippo leading the way. Francisco noticed the words "police" were right above him, in big, metallic letters over an overhang. He was returning to his home district a criminal. A terrorist.

Passing through the doors, they entered a grand rotunda, a fitting place to show case the police department of the world's crown-jewel city; the city that might soon fall apart, and set an example for the globe. There was an elephant at the reception desk, watching their arrival.

"So, Pinky, this is our mammal?"

"Yes, I'm taking him to one of the empty cells. Come morning, I'm sure Cheif Bogo will want to talk to him personally."

Frank was not sure exactly how the police station and city hall fit together. He could see multiple floors from where they walked, but little activity. It seemed few others were present at this hour. All the better, less gazes to judge him. Part of him was grateful his atrocity had been carried out during the night time.

They passed through a couple of double doors into the unglamorous, cinder block of the holding cell corridors. The first cell was already occupied by a fox. The next one was occupied by a raccoon. The third was waiting for him.

To think, Francisco Hernandez: the good boy, the straight A student, the higher earner, was now a terrorist.

The hippo opened the large, heavy, callous metal bars and Frank entered with the lion behind him. He might be spending a long time here, or in a place like this.

He headed to the bottom bed, big for his species but courteously low to the ground, and sat down on it. Pinkerton entered the cell. He approached the coyote, fished through his key ring, and undid Francisco's cuffs. It was a courtesy he would have taken no offense at being spared.

"Mr. Hernandez, I know you must be overwhelmed right now. You just sit tight. The police chief will come by in the morning to sort things out with you."

Surprisingly comely words. They really did believe him. Maybe working in the force gave people a sense of genuinity.

"Thanks," the canine said meekly, eyes to the floor. He did not look back as they exited, shutting the creaking bars behind them, and locked them with jingling keys.

Horrible as the situation was, he could not ask for anything more than solitude. The sanctuary of sleep would be even greater. He got under the covers and curled up, like a small child against a stormy world.

He closed his eyes. The sounds of the night: the sirens, the explosion, Wolfowitz' speech, all haunted his head. But at least he could escape into his dreams.


	22. Filling in the Details

"Good morning, Mr. Hernandez," was the surprisingly pleasant greeting. The coyote had been awoken in right stage of the ultradian rythm, so he came to immediately. He sat up, and saw a muscular buffalo officer, holding a clipboard and coffee, accompanied by a tiger. "Officer Pinkerton has informed me of your entire ordeal, and a witness corroborates your story. But there is still some confusion about what happened. I want you to fill in the details for me."

Witness, what witness?

The bunny: the one Wolfowitz had interrogated.

The police chief continued, "We're just here get some more information. Fangmeyer, the cuffs?"

The coyote took his cover off, swung his legs around, and eagerly offered up his wrists.

 _Click._

"Come, we're going to the interrogation room."

Frank rose as they all filed out of the cell. This was his new reality. A prisoner. A captive. A mammal with blood on his hands.

They passed an impala in cuffs, the first prey animal he had seen in custody. He had no shortage of kin in the correctional system, on both sides of the law. That was a small silver lining, as they would be the most understanding of what he had done. Though the prey had been surprisingly cordial so far.

He had been a gullible youth whipped up into a frenzy by his unfortunate experience and the climate of fear surrounding the city. Surely most of them could see that. His punishment would be exclusively from the inside-out. The scars of the lives he had taken would forever remain, marring his mind until his last breath. How many? He still did not know.

They entered the interrogation room. Chief Bogo took his seat, resting his steaming mug gently on the table, in front of the large mirror Frank knew from the movies was only one-way. As the coyote climbed onto his chair, he wondered if there was a mammal behind it.

"Let's get right down to business. My name is Chief Milton Bogo. You go by the name Francisco Hernandez, am I correct?"

"Yes sir," he said meekly.

The bovine took out a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. They made an odd contrast with his muscular frame. He picked up his clipboard and scanned it pensively. Then he looked up and said, "The police department has been in chaos this morning. There seems to be a lot of confusion and I want you to help clear up some details with me."

He put down the clip-board, and looked at him with eyes earnest and serious. "We understand you were instrumental in the break-in at the AniTech office last night, but had no knowledge of the intentions of your fellows to commit a terrorist attack. Is that correct?"

"Yes sir," Frank replied solemnly.

"Tell me the names of your associates."

The coyote's eyes shifted down to his cuffed wrists as he recounted.

"There was a wolf named Rudy Wolfowitz. He was the last one I saw. He used his lighter to bomb the building. There was also some female named Jamie Dogsbody. She did... _something_ inthe basement. And there was a lion named David Lennox who helped plan the whole thing, but he wasn't at the offices."

Frank heard Bogo sigh loudly. That was unexpected. Frank looked up to see he had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his face.

"Wolfowitz...Lennox. Those two. They were made for each other."

Frank watched him curiously. When he was done rubbing, he explained.

"Wolfowitz was one of our detectives. He resigned recently. He was always a bit of a deviant, but really didn't get along well with the other officers once the Predator Attacks started happening."

Frank had heard the story.

"And David?"

The exacerbated police chief pushed out his chair and walked over to wall, propping himself with his right hand and hanging his head.

"An admistrator on an online forum called 'Spearhead.' A place we've been watching for a long time. A bunch of bitter, old reactionaries trying to resist the march of time. They want to turn back the clock to the days when the lion was the king of the jungle, and the prey were on their dinner plates."

That was probably an exaggeration, but Frank felt self-conscious at the words. Bogo looked back at the coyote. "They received a boost in membership after the Mammal Inclusion Initiative passed. Even more when Officer Hopps became the first rabbit policemammal."

He disengaged from the wall and stood up straight. "How did they contact you?"

"At the hospital. After one your...officers kicked me in the head." He tightened inside as the recitation, but the bovine's face did not betray anything other than an unbroken seriousness. "Wolfowitz came to me under the alias 'Jack Dutcher', saying he was from the city government. He invited me to 'The Stained Fang.'"

"David's establishment..."

"Yes."

He walked back, sat down, and then picked up his clipboard again, flipping a page.

"From my reports, we raided that establishment last night. He had fled the scene. Do you have any idea where any of them could have gone?"

Francisco thought back to their last meeting. But he realized his memory was fuzzy, torn, and tattered like a photograph that had been through a hurricane. He felt tantalizing notion the final meeting must provide some kind of clue, but it was foggy as a dream now. Was it the blow to his head?

"I...No...I have no idea, sir. Wolfowitz hit me hard on the head with a tree branch before he fled. That may have...jostled my memories, my brain a bit."

He dearly hoped those were the only neural connections he had lost. His job required a lot of brains.

Bogo's expression hardened ever so slightly, becoming both discouraged and pensive. Then he looked back at his clipboard. He studied it sternly.

Keeping his eyes on the paper, the officer began, "You mentioned a third associate earlier. Jamie..."

"Dogsbody. Jamie Dogsbody. She claimed she was ex-TUSC."

"The Tactics and Utilities Specialist Combine. That can't be good," said the jaded buffalo.

"Agreed, sir."

A rogue TUSC soldier with thirst for blood, out and about.

A small wave of gumption inspired him to ask the question that had haunted him. He pushed out the words, weak and crackily:

"How many died?"

The bovine put down the clipboard and looked at him with the same earnest eyes.

"Seven, last we heard. Eight injured."

Seven souls taken. Seven lives that would never be lived. While one lived on with the burden of it all.


	23. A Little Redemption

**A/N: I know these chapters have been short. Don't worry. The next one coming up will be very meaty. Though for that reason, its production will take sometime.**

* * *

After the interrogation, the coyote had received a brief physical examination in luo of his head trauma. But since returning to his cell, he had not moved from his bed. He was drifting in and out of darkness.

There was one dominant question he was grappling with: If he had refused to work with the David's crew, would another have done it in his place? There were certainly other hackers, better hackers. But none who had been kicked in the head by a police officer less than a week prior, and probably none of had equal or greater gullibility.

The lion may have looked for another on Spearhead, but-

"Mr. Hernandez," announced the voice of Chief Bogo. He heard keys jingle and his cell door open. The buffalo stepped in, making his way in front of the vertical coyote with his feline subordinate walking a bit further to take position by his side. "I've got some good news. I've decided to let you aid in our investigation of the terrorist threat. You'll be accompanying myself and Officer Fangmeyer to the site of the bombing."

That was...appealing. Stuck with a past he could never escape, this seemed like the best path to take. He certainly did not have the spirit to rise for anything else. He could scrape together a little redemption, just a little. He guessed his contribution would be mostly token. Bogo probably knew that, and was just being a compassionate mammal. But it was worth something.

This would also explain why they still had not given him that orange suit.

The canine sat up, "When do you want to head out? Now?"

"If you need a moment to sort yourself out, I understand. If not, we can leave as soon as you're ready."

The coyote separated himself from his bed and covers and stood.

"Let's go."

Those terrorists who had marred his good name would pay. His life might be beyond repairs, but there's were not beyond breaking.

They got to walking in same formation: the chief in front, his underling behind.

They exited the cell, passing rows of other imprisoned inmates, and emerged back into the grand rotunda.

There was more activity than when he was first brought in. A mouse in a suit scurried in front of the chief. Chatter rang throughout the room. He could see an elephant at the reception desk: a different one, this one smaller and lighter in color, talking cheerfully with a couple of beavers.

He was an agent of the law now, one of the good guys. Just last night, he had been a solider on the other side.

As they approached the doors, an angry looking wolverine in cuffs walked in the opposite direction, followed by-

Gray feet. The sight grabbed his mind with a powerful recollection! He knew them!

He looked up as the rhino officer passed by. It was too late to make out his name tag, but that was the one who had kicked him, a look of malaise and disgruntlement in his eyes.

Francisco almost forgot where he was until the Bogo opened the door. His mind stuck to the previous sight, they all stepped outside into the blazing summer sun.


	24. Riotous Excitement

"So..." Bogo explained to the coyote in the back. "Apparently she released gas into the basement and fled. Rudy's lighter triggered the explosion."

Strange to have a terrorist attack he was involved in explained right in front of him. He was a different mammal, in a different world, now. He was not the innocent, little, solitary computer jockey anymore.

The chief turned his attention to his partner:

"Fangmeyer, what did I tell you about texting on the job?"

"Sorry sir. I was just...sorry." He spoke with a slight foreign accent. This was the first time the coyote had heard him talk.

Frank wondered how it would feel coming back to see the AniTech building. He had never got a good look at the blast site. He-

A voice crackled over the radio.

"Sir, we've got a situation in Tundratown. A riot developing, right near the western Savannah Central entrance. It's the preds. It's getting out of hand, fast. Can you send a request for reinforcements?"

A riot of predators? Those words hit Francisco like a bullet. It must have had something to do with the Tame Collars.

"Dammit," the buffalo muttered under his breath. Then he responded, "We'll be there in a couple of minutes, Higgins. Don't worry."

The bovine looked back.

"Looks like we're taking a detour. Sorry, Francisco."

Chief Bogo flipped on the sirens, and made a hard turn back in the direction they had just come from.

Now his evil had left its mark in two districts. He just had to hope this riot did not take any lives. The city was coming apart right before his eyes. To think one little coyote could have such an effect. He had let his personal grievances whip him into a frenzy, one that would effect hundreds, if not thousands of mammals.

But a riot meant he was not the only mammal dumb enough to get whipped into a frenzy by the idea of a 'Tame Collar.' Though it was telling he was standardizing himself against rioters.

This right after a terrorist attack was salt in the wound: Not for the prey, but for the predators. Speciel relations were sliding down the tubes at full speed, and his people were looking more and more like the villains. Combined with their numerical disadvantage, that was a dangerous combination.

 _Dammit._

They passed under the mighty climate wall. It had been a while since Francisco had been to Tundratown, not since his assignment at JP Mare-gan.

In the pretty, white district, Frank could hear the rabble, even though he could see little from his small-bodied vantage point. To think, _his_ foolishness had led to all this.

He felt the car slow to a stop.

"Francisco, stay inside. If we don't have things under control in an hour, I'll send Fangmeyer back for you so you don't freeze."

Bogo and Fangmeyer got up and opened their respective doors. Francisco managed to hear, "I ain't gonna wear no motherfucking-" right before they closed.

This was his mess. Him and Wolfowitz. Rudy had taken the pictures, but Frank had let him in. They were no doubt circulating online right now. Maybe on that forum 'Spearhead.' If anyone died in this riot, he would have even more blood on his hands. The thought was too horrible to dwell on.

He had let such personal grievances get him in such a tizzy, that he had been blinded to the fact he was working with terrorists. In retrospect it seemed so obvious.

How big was the riot? He unbuckled his seatbelt and stood to get a better view. He walked a small ways to look out the front window unobscured by the passenger's and driver's seat. Sunglasses, balaclavas, and baseball bats had a copious presence. There were now four police officers, including Bogo and Fangmeyer, trying to contain the mob.

As long as no one was killed, he could live with this. He just had to hope this did not escalate. Maybe the addition of two cops would prevent that. But nothing could be gained by observing. It was out of his hands. He walked back to his little corner sat down to wait patiently, left to ponder the consequences of his actions.

Then he thought he could hear some voices now coming from behind, new guests to the ruckus. And they were approaching disquietingly close to the car.

Then the coyote realized they had stopped right by it. He tensed. A police car was an obvious target for rioters.

A metal bat smashed through the window, broken glass jingling into the canine's lap and he scrambled back in a moment of fright!

A snow-leopard, scarf over his face and winter cap, looked at him with his hard beady eyes. Then he turned. "Hey Rudy, there's a coyote in here! Think we should let him out?"

Rudy? Francisco's chest filled with anticipation. Surely it could not be...

"A coyote? Wait, let me see."

That sounded like his voice. Yes. Onto the scene came the wolf, cloaked in a hoody and very reflective sunglasses.

The sight hit Frank like lightening. He scrambled forwards furiously. "You son of a-ah, fuck!"

Broken glass cut through his paws, thwarting his attempt to climb out the window and strangle the wolf. He staggered back and fell onto his rump, before he squeezed his bleeding hand with a tight and nurturing grip. Just like his final moments in the AniTech offices, he looked pathetic before the villainous lupine.

"Francisco...working with the cops now?" he snarled. Evidently, neither of them took pleasure in this encounter.

"You piece of shit!" Frank shouted, words manifesting in puffs of mist. "You tricked me into _murder_!"

"I delivered the opening salvo in an inevitable war. The prey can't accept their own inferiority. The dogma of equality isn't sustainable. The conflict is inevitable."

Such high-minded rhetoric meant nothing buried under a stack of dead bodies. Frank glanced down only at his bleeding paw, which was now dribbling onto his pant leg.

In the distance, one of the rabble shouted, "We should have never stopped eating you mother fuckers!"

The wolf looked over at the source of the voice, then back at Frank. "He's right, you know. Eating the prey was a form of population control. Without it, they would fight wars over their grazing land." His sharp fangs, the ancient mark of his race, flashed with the words.

The coyote did not have anything to say. He just stared, entranced at the demon before him: the one who had stolen his soul and used it as an end in his mad crusade. Never before he heard a predator justify-

The wolf continued, "Our ancestors messed with the natural order, bringing flat-tooths in to live as our equals. It's time for the wheat to detach from the chaff."

"You're insane! Do you really think all this violence will accomplish anything!?"

Wolfowitz leaned in slightly, careful not to repeat Frank's mistake with the jagged glass.

"We need to fight this war now, while it's winnable. With the bunnies _alone_ outbreeding us so rapidly-"

Something caught Rudy's attention from the side. He looked over, then returned his gaze to Francisco. Then he looked back at his leopard partner. "C'mon, let's go. Let this little sellout follow the flat-tooths into hell."

They started jogging back the way they came. Leaving the window clear, Francisco immediately got running back to the aperture, this time mindful of the glass edges. He stuck his head out the best he could and yelled, "Help! Help! The terrorist! He's here!"

But it did not seem the officers even heard him over the riotous crowd.


	25. ,,,

Maimane park was an odd place. A place of quiet and humble nature, flanked by ugly, dilapidated, industrial buildings.

Judy climbed up the mossy and ivy covered bridge, where she knew her tiny bunny frame could get the best view.

 _'Oh I tried, and it made things so much worse for so many innocent predators.'_

Those words, her own words, haunted her. She remembered how strange they felt coming out of her mouth. 'Innocent' and 'predators.' For her whole life, predators were privileged, scary, bad ass, mighty...

But never 'innocent.'

"Nick? Nick?" she said, scampering from side to side. The park seemed empty.

Then she could hear something. It sounded like the slurping of a nearly empty drink. Could it be? She crawled her way over the stone 'guard rail' to look right down the edge.

"Oh, Nick!" she cried. In same shirt as when they had met, he was wearing turtle-shell sunglasses and sipping from a large styrofoam cup, sitting on a lawn chair with his feet propped on a bucket.

Finally reuniting with her scorned friend, she briskly scampered down from the bridge. She had no idea how this was going to go, but things could only get better from here.

"Night howlers aren't wolves! They're toxic flowers! I think someone's targeting predators on purpose and making them go savage!"

The vulpine put down his drink. Judy stopped breathing, wondering for a suspenseful moment what he would say. She had not really made a prediction.

" _Wow,"_ was his response, heavy and sardonic. He rose from his seat, took off his sunglasses and put them on his footrest. "Isn't that interesting..."

Judy was taken aback. She should not have expected this to be simple, but...what had she expected?

He was walking, slow and gloomy, into the underside of the bridge.

"Wait, wait!" she dashed after him. "Please I - I know you'll never forgive me! And I don't blame you!"

She had gone from being apologized to by a fox, to begging for one's forgiveness. Their respective incidents were fifteen years apart. Was it because the country had changed? Much in the way she had been trying to change it?

"I wouldn't forgive me either."

The fox, ancient enemy of bunnies, stopped, looking out into the sunlit, green park from the cover of the stone structure. "I was ignorant, and irresponsible, and small minded." She was so focused on her own, selfish social justice crusade, she had ignored bigotry right under her own, tiny nose.

Still silence.

"But predators shouldn't suffer because of my mistakes."

 _'Predators.' 'Suffer.'_ Those two words also felt odd together. For almost her whole life, she had only really thought about the injustices suffered by her own kind: the prey, especially small prey. Predators, at least large predators, had been as invulnerable as the days they stalked the jungle.

"I have to fix this." The rabbit could feel her eyes starting to burn.

"But I can't do it without you."

Her voice cracked, ever so slightly. She had kept a stiff upper lip in front of bullies, in front of her most harsh superiors, but she could not keep it below the weight of her own mistakes.

"And...and after we're done," the last word coming out as a weak breath. "You can _hate_ me."

She closed her eyes hard, squeezing out tears. "And that'll be fine. Because I was a _horrible_ friend. And I hurt you. And you - and you can walk away knowing that you were right all along."

She took a deep breath. The 'bigots' of her childhood were right, and thus so too were the 'bigots' of old. "I really _am_ just a dumb bunny!"


	26. A Trail Cut Short

Though it had taken a precious minute to get their attention, he and the two officers were hot on the trail. In the snow they had followed footsteps. Now back in Savannah Central, they followed witness testimony. They had found discarded baseball bats and winter clothes in a dumpster along the way.

This was Frank's chance at redemption. Catching the murderous wolf might wipe away some of the scarring on his ruined life. The departed souls of AniTech were rooting for him.

They stopped in front of a line outside the Zootopia Playhouse movie theater. The coyote rose from the dark cloth of the back seat and they exited the vehicle again, and approached a zebra in pink at the back of the line. Just last night he was a plaything of evil terrorists. Now he was working shoulder to shoulder with the city's majestic force for good.

"Ma'am, a wolf and a hyena may have passed through here. Have you seen any two predators like that together come through recently?"

The zebra opened her mouth to respond, when a voice crackled over the chief's radio. "Officer Milton Bogo, Mayor Bellwether has ordered you, Fangmeyer, and the coyote accompanying you to immediately return to the precinct."

That was untimely.

"What? Who is this? What is the meaning of this? We're on an important case!"

The next voice was female. "Officer Bogo, you have your orders. Return to the city hall immediately."

"Mayor Bellwether?"

But there was no response.

"Mayor Bellwether, we have a terrorist on the lose. One of those involved in the attack on the AniTech offices."

"That's precisely my concern. Return to city hall immediately."

What on Earth could she mean?

"Mayor, if I may-"

" _Now_ , Chief Bogo."

The words were like the thrust of a dagger.

The dismayed bovine put his radio back, as Francisco stared, stunned, caught completely off guard.

"Dammit. It looks like this cuts our investigation short. Come on. Both of you. Back in the car."

Even a hulking police chief was helpless against the orders of his superiors. What could possibly deserve more attention than this!?

Frank climbed back in the giant vehicle, though the previous task had terminated, the police car becoming a graveyard of dead endeavor. Worry and helpless and bafflement fizzled in his mind. He was confident the feelings were the same among the other two.

Bogo started the car again, as the butcher of AniTech was left to run off pursued.

Mayor Bellwether must have a had a better lead, somehow. Somehow they had made a mistake. What could it be?

The city hall could not be far. Maybe they had a chance to get back on the trail after whatever this was. But Frank noticed the police chief had not put on the sirens, forcing them to submit to any traffic along the way. He seemed to have submitted to the idea the chase had just become a lost cause.

Frank's mind was tethered Wolfowitz, who was growing ever more out of reach by the second. He wondered what the hyena's place was in all this, too. He had never seen a hyena at The Stained Fang. Where had all the terrorist ambition started? The VIP lounge of the bar? A private message exchange on Spearhead? David Lennox, the lion, had been outwardly in charge, but he seemed so calm and level headed. Maybe Wolfowitz was really the epicenter of this darkness.

They passed the Herds & Grazing building, where Frank had once been contracted. He knew where they were, they would be at the city hall shortly, but the loss in pursuit was devastating. His mind danced for a possible explanation for this interruption, but he got none. He itched desperately to see what news the diminutive mayor had to offer, how it could justify this derailment.

Chief Bogo maneuvered into an empty spot, parked the car, and they all got out, exiting the vehicle that had just minutes ago been pursuing justice.

They walked from the sunlit outdoors and entered the rotunda, the floor bearing the streaks of a fresh mopping. Bellwether was about thirty feet away, waiting with a scowl on her face and arms folded. Two towering, woolly rams in uniform flanked her.

"Cheif Milton Bogo," she said sternly, voice echoing slightly through the massive room. "I expected better from you. Enlisting a terrorist to help your investigation?"

"Yes ma'am. A terrorist to find a terrorist. But this one didn't know what he was getting into when he went to the AniTech offices, he-"

"No buts, officer. I'm demanding this coyote immediately be sent to the Savannah Central Penitentiary and held without bail until a trial can begin!"

The words cracked through the air like slap to the face.

"Under what authority-"

"The Emergency Powers Clause." Bellwether said with ostentatious confidence. Obviously, she had expected this question.

There was a brief silence. Francisco had stopped breathing.

"I've heard of no such thing, Bellwether. If you're trying to-"

"It's _Mayor_ Bellwether," the sheep retorted angrily, a fire burning behind her soft, blue eyes, trapped in her tiny frame. "And if you're planning on disobeying the authority of the mayor, that's grounds for immediate termination!"

Frank could hardly believe the words being flung. There was a choking silence as the two stared at each other. The canine could not see Bogo's face, but the mayor's gaze was hard, hot, and determined.

Finally the buffalo spoke up. "And if the mayor doesn't have said authority?"

"Are you really willing to take that chance, Officer Bogo?"

Again, silence, her mighty proclamations simmering in the air.

After a few seconds, the silence had been enough.

"William, Terrance, take the coyote! I've already notified the detention center."

The buffalo stood frozen as the rams went around him. Frank's chance for redemption, to stop a terrorist, was cut short for this.

"Arms forward," said the one on the left. Frank complied, meek and boneless with shock, and they cuffed him. Such a short time free, fighting for redemption. At first he thought fortune had done him a great grace. Now things had tumbled back down.

"Follow me."


	27. Coming Home to Roost

The coyote glanced at every cell he could as he passed the rows of incarcerated in the baren and unforgiving concrete halls. He only hoped he would be in a cell alone, and if not that, then with another predator. And he would greatly prefer one his size or smaller. The first hope seemed in vein, as every cell had at least one occupant.

The rhino guard seemed to have found his cell. Inside was a large, muscle-bound, shirtless white ox. _Oh no._ Luck could not have dealt him a worse hand.

The guard unlocked the door and held it opened. Frank walked in, and the tigress behind him undid his cuffs. His hands were free, but he could not have imagined a worse place to end up.

The officers shut the door and walked off, and as if luck could not get any worse, the massive mammal approached him with a husky side and anger glimmering in his eyes. Frank stopped breathing.

"Word is you were one them that blew up the office building, AniTech, was it called."

He knew? Goddammit.

"I was tricked! I let them in because they told me they wanted to see what was-"

"Can it, chomper-boy!" he said, jamming a hoof forward. The tiny canine froze. "It's in your nature to kill those who ain't like you. You spent millions of years eatin' us and feeling nothing for it. You're a race of sociopaths!"

"Predators worked at AniTech too! I never meant to-"

"You wouldn't even exist without us!" Frank's soul was rattled. The ox began the next words as a venomous whisper, leaning in. "You owe us the meat on your bones," he said, tracing up the length of the coyote's body with his hoof.

Frank stood scared, frozen, feeling as soft and vulnerable as a child.

The white beast put his arms back at his sides and clenched his fists. "But now y'all been showin' your true colors. Lemme tell you, chomper-boy: The chicken's coming home to roost."

"Clay!" a miraculous voice from the left shouted. They both turned to see a brown bear guard. "Give the new mammal some space! Another incident with you and I'll throw you in solitary!"

The coyote looked back at the bovine, who snarled. Angry but defeated, he walked back to his bunk, where Francisco noticed a dumbell laid at rest.

Frank just stood, self-conscious and shaken.

The words of Wolfowitz rung in his head: " _Two-thousand and the prey still can't get over the past."_

But Wolfowitz had not helped with this problem: first the Predators Attacks and then the terrorism, were just what the justification the flat-tooths needed to turn the world upside down.

Predators forgave everything, tolerated everybody. But they could not expect the same courtesy from the prey.

The coyote's mind wandered back to Mayor Bellwether. She had thrown him in here, even at the expense of catching Zootopia's most wanted terrorist. Was it her own hatred of predators that motivated her? She had a lost a lot to a predator, possibly at the hands anti-prey bias. He remembered Rudy's conspiracy theory. The blue spots on their necks, the coincidental meeting between Judy Hopps and the Bellwether family. It was certainly eerie.

If such a plot could be revealed, would it peel back the damage done to speciel relations in Zootopia?

But that was just fantasy right now, he was trapped in a cage.

Frank noticed the tiger who had uncuffed him walking back the way she had come.

"Excuse me, officer," he said, halting her and getting her attention. "I would like to make my phone call."


	28. Synergy and Antagonism

Though prison was still hardly his first choice of abode, the coyote was grateful for the solitude...relative solitude: He had been relieved of Clayton Oxford's presence yesterday, and a cell all to himself was a welcome improvement.

He was left feeling raw for all the time in hostile company. The bovine had rattled him, returned his cognizance on the state of the world, reawakened his fear for the predator race, and made him remember the monster, Wolfowitz, had some wisdom buried beneath his hate.

 _"They treat us like we're born with original sin."_

Indeed, that was the under-current of society the coyote had grown up with. And he was told to shrug it off, because at least prey were not _eating_ predators. Now they were seeing the consequences of their Politically Correct complacency.

 _Prey are weak and stupid. Predators are evil._ Those were the two unwritten rules of the species. But was the latter ever really regarded as prejudice? The progressives, the Populists like Bellwether, seemed devoted to eradicating the idea prey were weak and stupid, but had only succeeded, maybe only intended, on further entrenching the idea predators were born evil.

Wolfowitz, Jamie, and the lion had committed their atrocity because they were scared for their future in society, the future of all predators. Was that fright unreasonable? The pendulum was swinging back hard and fast, if it had ever really been in their favor in the first place.

Then two guards arrived at his cell, with a guest from the ZPD. Chief Bogo!?

They unlocked the door, and the buffalo stepped in.

"Mr. Hernandez, you didn't tell me your brother in law was a lawyer."

"I..."

"Mayor Bellwether was out of line. The Emergency Powers Clause only applies when the President declares an emergency. It didn't take long for Michael to prove she had no right to hold you in prison, but that delay she caused during our pursuit of Wolfowitz might have given him time to get away."

Her petty prejudice had cost Zootopia its most wanted terrorist! That was how dangerous this new wave of anti-predator sentiment was! But Francisco now felt guilt at all the negative thoughts he had towards Micheal. Plastic, phony...

"Come on," the buffalo said. "I'm here to escort you out."

Frank rose. Though the worst of prison had been over when Clayton left, he was still grateful to be free again. The comfort and privacy of his apartment would be welcome, even if his life was permanently scarred.

He followed Bogo through the halls, passing all those left fortunate than himself as they observed with envious eyes through an ocean of bars.

"I'm not sure if you've been keeping up with current events. We had another terrorist attack Friday night."

Another one, so soon? Frank's spirit immediately darkened.

The police chief continued, "Have you heard of an establishment called 'Centzon?'"

"No." He had kept himself in his own little world while incarcerated. But the fires outside were only getting worse, apparently.

The tigress who had escorted him the first day power-walked past them.

"It's a nightclub frequented mostly by rabbits. Someone detonated a bomb there. The blast was small, but enough to take lives. Today the Mayor declared the beginning of a curfew for all predatory mammals. 8:00pm to 6:00am."

A curfew? Speciel relations were getting worse, and that was going to wreak havoc on the economy.

"How bad was it?"

"3 dead, 14 injured."

So not as bad as the horror he had been involved with, but enough to stir up more prey rage, certainly.

The buffalo continued, "Whoever it was did a damn good job covering their tracks. I have a suspicion it was the same bunch that tricked you into doing their dirty work at AniTech."

The word 'AniTech' sent a shiver through his soul, but Frank appreciated the policemammal including the word 'tricked.' If Wolfowitz, Lennox, and Jamie were behind the attack at Centzon, they would be a very busy group of mammals. Truly they were a horror upon the city if they could pull of two terrorist attacks in one week. How many more before they were apprehended? A T.U.S.C. soldier and a detective _were_ a bad pair to turn against the law. Of course, the bovine could be wrong. But was that any better? That would only mean there were more predators who shared Rudy's ideas.

Their feet tapped through the hollow hall, one pair soft and padded, the other hard and hooved.

How many predators _did_ think like them? Growing up, Frank would have guessed 'next to none.' But he knew, especially when it came to speciel issues, mammals were often dishonest about their beliefs.

After a bit of silence, the Bogo finally asked:

"So, how was your time in prison, Francisco?"

The memories were unpleasant. "I had to spend most of my time with a bigoted ox named Clayton. He mostly left me alone, but...I don't like being locked in a cage with someone so hostile."

Francisco thought it was a little funny for a police officer to hear what prison felt like.

"Bigotry is the antithesis this city stands for. I suspect these terrorists are trying to revive the supremacist ideas that let them eat us with clear consciences. Our success in apprehending them will bring both bloodlines here back together."

The bovine's synergistic ideas were refreshing at benighted times like this. Francisco was filled with patriotic warmth, but he wondered how long it would last.

They had made it back to the reception room, and exited into the blessed sunlight. The memories of the day he first arrived were strong.

"I'll give you a ride home," the buffalo said as he headed towards his police car. "God knows you've had a rough few days."


	29. Pity and Prey

"So did you ever work with...Judy Hopps?"

"Yes, I did. She exceeded my wildest expectations when she cracked the case of the missing predators. But the fallout got to her."

The fallout? The backlash towards predators. To think, a rabbit having compassion for his kind...

"Is that why she quit the force?"

"Yes. She left right as we were about to make her the poster-child for the ZPD. I was in the room when she resigned."

The words hit Frank hard. All that, for predators.

"What did she say?"

"Something about 'breaking the world.' She felt terrible about all the hostility the predator community received after her discovery at Cliffside Asylum."

Francisco was deeply touched. He was disarmed. He had never heard about a prey animal taking pity on predators, until Judy.

"So she quit?"

"Turned in her badge right in the mayor's office."

Francisco was at a loss for words. A rabbit had done that for his kind. And he felt, for a flash of a moment, undeserving.

No, he was not undeserving. There was no reason he should carry the sins of his ancestors. But in her pity, she had also acted for mammals like Wolfowitz, as they, blinded by fear and hatred, murdered her kind.

The car halted. "This is your stop," said the bovine. Then he turned halfway around. "If you want to continue to aid in this investigation, stop by the police station in the morning. Tell the mammal at the front desk you want to see Chief Bogo. We'll compensate you accordingly."

He would. For mammals like Judy. And Bogo.

"I think I'll do that," said Frank, and then he exited.

As the car drove off, he marveled at the familiar yet unfamiliar streets, the endless stream of shops and establishments. It was so much better than an endless stream of cages. Freedom truly was God's greatest gift to mammals.

He entered the Alcala complex, taking in the sweet smell of clean air. At least his time in prison would give him a new found appreciation for his luxuries, and privacy.

But his life was still broken, and so was the city. Even he had been infected to an extent. In prison, with Clayton Oxford to color his feelings about prey, Rudy's pernicious thoughts had haunted his psyche. Now after his chat with Bogo, his feelings towards prey had bounced back far in the opposite direction.

What a storm the past two weeks had been. He was a whole different mammal now.

Room 207. He opened the door.

It was the same as ever. As much as his life had changed, as much as the city had changed, some things never did. This place had never betrayed him.

He walked back over to his computer. As much sinister business he had been involved in, none of it started with that machine.

He sat down and pressed the power button. The machine yawned as it awoke from its long sleep. First thing he did after getting out of prison was head for his computer. His life revolved around the damn thing.

At least, until he had become a terrorist.

Upon getting to the desktop, he proceeded with a familiar ritual and opened his home page. The first headline referenced their conversation:

 **Mayor Dawn Bellwether Announces 8:00pm to 6:00am Predator Curfew, Effective Immediately**

There were the police chief's words, in print. Francisco clicked the story, but then decided the title told him all he needed to know, so he skimmed the rest of the article.

Then there were the comments. He remembered how those had effected him in the past. But after what he been through, he did not feel the words from anonymous commenters could set him off. He was too drained after being thrown about by the harsh currents of life to get roused by such petty things: Saddened, perhaps, but not angry, not distracted.

He began reading.

 **The streets will never be safer!**

 **^644**

 **Thank you, Mayor Bellwether!**

 **^313**

 **Dawn Bellwether should have been Zootopia's Mayor from the start! #EndPredatorSupremacy!**

 **^211**

That was about what he expected. It was a sad reality, but a reality he was well aware of.

It was still worth seeing what else was going on. He hit the back button and looked at the next article title.

 **Brett Howell Becomes Final "Savage" from Original Fourteen Missing Mammals to Recover**

That seemed intriguing, and a read that would be lighter on his heart than the last. He opened it.

 **Brett Howell, a 23 year old fry cook living Savannah Central, became the latest mammal to recover from "Savage Syndrome", marking the last of the fourteen original predators to make a recovery.**

 **Like all other thirteen patients, Brett reports no memory of his time in psychosis, or any events five to ten minutes before turning. As such, there is little data to draw from any mammal's experiences, being lack of memories as the only consistency.**

 **Those who monitored and researched the the predators during their state of savagery, however, have much more to say.**

 **"The short-term retrograde amensia and lack of memories during the experience reported by all patients seems to speak to halt in the brain's ability to form long term memories upon the onset of the condition," Dr. Jameson Horne, explains. "The entire 'savage' condition seems to consist of a shut down of higher brain functions, which control mental capacities such as long term memory, reasoning, and empathy."**

 **"It also seems to be accompanied by hyper stimulation of the lower brain, especially the amygdala, the center of the organ responsible for fear and aggression. These two factors combine to create the seemingly 'feral' behavior in all predators who have succumbed to the 'savage' condition."**

 **The good news, Dr. Jameson Horne says, is there appear to be no permanent health effects to the condition. While full recovery is not instantaneous, Barry DiCaprio, the first victim of 'Savage Syndrome', is reported to have all his mental faculties back and has returned to his work at Macrosoft.**

 **Psychological scars, however, present another issue. Many former 'savages' are struggling to cope with the consequences of their actions in their crazed state. While some of the fourteen missing mammals only inflicted minor injuries or none at all on those around them upon turning, a few were not so lucky. One unfortunate mammal, Hason Khan, took the lives three other individuals before being subdued.**

 **Also, even as 'savage' predators recover, the ripples their actions remain, causing deep distrust and fear of predatory citizens throughout the city and even in the nation as a whole.**

 **Scientists also remain puzzled over the source of such fearsome outbursts, though research is ongoing. Interviews with patients, however, seem to be providing few answers.**

Frank did not bother the commenters. He expected them to be a little kinder than the last article's, but had no strong desire to find out. He clicked the back button and scanned the remaining headlines.

 **President Bronco Bamma Plans Visit and Speech in City of Zootopia In Leu of Speciel Tensions**

 **Predatory Citizen Assaulted By Knife-Wielding Zebra on Metro**

 **OPINION: Making Sense of Terror, A Reflection on AniTech and Centzon**

None of those seemed worth following up on.

His curiosity pointed somewhere else: to Spearhead, the ground zero of this terrible predator hate, of those who had manipulated him into a horrific act of terror.

He typed "Spearhead" into the search bar, pressed enter, and saw the site at the top of the result.

This was a site that had made mammals into murderers. He viewed the link with a sort of superstitious dread. But how bad could viewing a website be?

He clicked, entering the sordid under belly of predator supremacy and hate politics.

Outwardly it looked harmless. The color scheme was clearly based on cheetah print, and the banner at the top read:

 **Fangs and Claws,**

 **Raise Your Paws!**

But this little corner of the internet had spawned the worst terrorist attack the city had seen in many years, who knew what kind of vile, festering hatred lay inside, even if it was wrapped in a presentable package. He began scanning the sub forums. He scrolled past "Introduction and FAQ" to "News and Current Events."

The hottest thread was on display in a sidebar, and it immediately jumped out at him.

 **PREY CORPORATION MANUFACTURING "TAME COLLARS" FOR PREDATORS! MUST SEE!**

The words touched his very soul. That thread was the monster his work had created on that awful night.

He entered the thread. It had already reached fifteen pages. The poster was "David L.", the title "Admin" written under his name. Francisco felt raw.

 **Friends, for two years, I have been an admin on this site. I'm afraid, today, my time with Spearhead comes to an end. At great cost, I obtained the photos I am about to show you, to warn you of our upcoming crisis.**

 **These photos were taken in the offices of the AniTech corporation at 1494 Cook Rd, Rainforest District, Zootopia City tonight by a brave mammal who will remain anonymous. From what we understand, these collars are to be used control predator behavior, fastened around the neck and delivering a painful shock to unruly carnivores. Of course, a picture is worth a thousands words, so please view these photos for yourselves.**

Francisco scrolled through the large, clumsily posted pictures.

The night came back to him so hard he, for a second, forgot he was in his apartment.

Below the photos was more text.

 **This is the last you will hear from me. This expedition to the AniTech offices was undertaken at my own ambitions, and even the other admins at Spearhead were not told of my endeavors. I have broken the law and will soon be a wanted mammal, so it must be so.**

 **God speed to my fellow predators in the upcoming struggles we face.**

Those were the words of David, the kindly lion who had invited him to The Stained Fang.

Francisco expected most posters on the forum would be more like Wolfowitz. David seemed so level-headed as to be out of place. Maybe it was an act. Maybe not. But all that was superficial, because they were both terrorists.

The first two replies read:

 **Disgusting. If they think they can get these filthy collars on us, they have another thing coming.**

And

 **Flat-tooths are really milking these 'Predator Attacks' for all they're worth. Who's up for some roasted rabbit haunch?**

Frank guessed those responses were before anyone knew the offices had been bombed. Frank was somewhat curious how that news would effect the posts in the thread, but after immersing himself in darkness he felt it was time to come up for air. Maybe he would rest and reflect. He X-ed out, back to the peace and harmless solitude of his desk top background. He felt a new, heavy despair for the future of his home city, his home nation, and his home planet.


	30. United We Stand

Passing Herds & Grazing brought some unpleasant familiar feelings: Memories of the day the mayor snatched him and Chief Bogo from the trail of the terrorist Rudy Wolfowitz, robbing him of his chance of redemption. The fact that even she had been infected by this anti-predator hysteria made him furious. Outwardly, she seemed so calm and diplomatic. But she was a different mammal beneath her facade, even more vulnerable to the trappings of bigotry than most.

Or maybe he was just angry at the new stigma he had taken on. He _had_ collaborated in a terrorist attack. Was she really unreasonable? She was wrong, certainly, but...

Regardless, bigoted or not, Mayor Bellwether was not nearly as hateful and frightening as those on Spearhead. Referring to Bronco Bamma as "talking lunch meat", and regularly calling prey "sub-mammals" were just a couple of their charms. It made Francisco wonder what kind of things had Rudy posted, in the company of his ideological kin.

The streets were bustling, but it was troubled city underneath. Predators were now compounded with the stigmas of "Savage Syndrome" and "terrorist." In return, many of them were thinking of taking back the natural order of things. And he had played a part in this.

Francisco passed an establishment with a sign taped to it: " **No Preds Allowed!** " beneath " **Trotter's Bagels and Donuts** ".

"No Preds." That was a first. He had seen "No Foxes" before. He had seen "No Weasels." But "No Predators"? That was new, even if it felt like a long time coming. This would have been a living nightmare to the old, ruling lion aristocracy, and a heart-breaking betrayal to King Afolabi. Maybe it would have felt worse for the predators that passed unverisal suffrage and made the nation a true democracy.

The city hall was visible ahead. Despite this conflict, the beautiful architecture, both the building itself and its surroundings, was a testament to what mammals could build when they cooperated. Yet it also showed all they stood to lose.

He entered through the mighty double doors, this time freely, not escorted by police as a captive.

Last time he was here, it was in the dead of night. Entering now, he realized how zesty and modern it all looked: the jaggedly shaped lights, the plants flanking the wall, the curvy architecture. The information desk itself was like its own little island, shaped like a capital "I" with a circular top and base. There was an elephant at the information desk, but a different one than he had been herded in front of last time.

"Hi, how may I help you?" she asked eagerly, pressing her hooves toghether.

Arriving at the shiny wooden base, highlighting their contrast in height, the coyote began:

"My name's Francisco Hernandez. Chief Bogo said he wanted me to-"

"Oh, yes, Francisco! Just a moment please."

She pressed a button.

"Hey, Chief, Francisco's here to see you!"

"Just a moment, Francine."

A few seconds of silenced passed. Then Bogo came on again.

"Right, send him up. Tell him where to go."

The elephant looked back:

"Chief Bogo's office is up there!" she said, pointing to the second or third balcony. "He's on the fourth floor! The stairs are behind my desk. Take a right after you make it up. The door's got his name on it!"

"Thanks," the coyote said simply.

As he walked upon the polished floor, he saw a pig in cuffs. It was a nice reminder even with the rise of anti-predator sentiments, prey were still held accountable the law.

Frank noticed he was being taken to the same doors he had entered on that horrible night

He tried to shoo the memories away and focus on the staircase. Suits, officers, and criminals all seemed to mix in this cosmopolitan building. Animals of all sizes mixed too: a mouse in a business suit scurried across the floor several feet ahead of him, while two hulking feline officers discussed the day over cups of coffee.

He arrived at the stairs and began climbing.

He and a prey mammal were going to unite to the stop this terrorist threat. That was what Zootopia was meant to be, even as more and more citizens fell away from that vision.

But if they could not bring back that love and unity, the predator race might be doomed in this city. They composed only 10% of the population. What about the greater nation?

It was times like this when Francisco felt an inkling of sympathy for their cause. But that quickly extinguished upon remembering how much worse they had made things.

Getting the fourth floor, he saw lightening-like pattern on the carpet, and the glass beneath the guard rail was painted like blue skies behind tall grass. The color scheme of the entire hall reminded him of a tropical resort, it was all surprisingly bright and cheery. Yet it was also a reminder of times when the city had less serious problems.

Francisco passed a kangaroo before getting to the door with the chief's named emblazoned on it.

He knocked.

"Francisco, come in, we have important things to discuss."

The bovine opened the door and gestured him in. Entering the office, Francisco glanced around, noticing a map of the city on the left wall, and a couple of medals in a display case. But most striking was the giant ZPD badge replica behind the desk.

He instinctually hopped on the chair in front of Bogo's desk, as the bigger mammal settled in.

"Things have been a mess since the incident in AniTech," Chief Bogo said. 'Incident', that was a considerate euphemism. "It's been like playing whack-a-mole. We move to deal with one threat, and we're given another surprise. Riots, hate crimes, and, of course, terrorism. We've had little time to go back the scene where all this mayhem started. That tavern: The Stained Fang. I believe you could help us dig a little deeper."


	31. Computers and Terror

As they closed in, walking up familiar planks, returning to The Stained Fang was hard. The only thing worse would be going back to the AniTech offices. That would be much worse, actually. Now he realized he should be grateful.

Chief Bogo had given him an oversized notepad and pencil to write down whatever crucial things he learned from Lennox's computer. Fangmeyer was accompanying them as before.

It had been evening all the other times Francisco had walked up these planks. And he was a much more innocent mammal back then. There was nothing he would not give to have the old, mundane, world back.

There was The Stained Fang, neon sign off, yellow tape in front of the doors. It had been a caulderon of evil.

Bogo and Fangmeyer ducked under the yellow tape and opened the door. Inside, a horse in a suit and sunglasses, probably a ZBI agent, was just coming up from the lower floor, where he and the officers were now heading.

He trotted down the familiar steps. How naive he had been the last three times.

He remembered the relative merriment he had had down here. Two more suits were on the bottom floor. Chief Bogo opened the door to David's office and gestured him.

"Head in, Francisco. Work your magic. I have to talk to the help."

David's office. Frank approached.

Francisco entered, feeling a pertinent flash back to his first time in the room, and saw the menacing computer upon the mahogany desk.

He approached the leviathan, navigating to the CPU. He pressed the power button, and the computer let out a whiny yawn. It probably had not been on for days. He climbed onto David's chair. The two highlights of his life were merging in this room: computers, and terrorism.

When the desktop finally loaded, it was a picture of David's family. It was the last thing Francisco needed right now. It was the lion in goofy orange swim trunks, his wife, and his two children: one son and one daughter, perhaps ten and eight respectively, with a beach behind them.

But David was an outlaw now, it was not like he would be seeing them any time soon regardless of outcomes.

Francisco decided to start with David's internet, clicking the Zoogle Chrome icon and finding himself on Zoogle. It was not clear if David had a Zoogle Mail account, because he would have been logged off due to inactivity by now either way. Regardless, Zoogle was a tough nut to crack. Frank decided his account on Spearhead would be a better place to start, especially since he remembered David's username. He typed the simple url into the address bar.

 **Fangs And Claws,**

 **Raise Your Paws**

Frank had already done more than enough sampling from the site. He needed to hack into David's account, and perhaps find something in his private messages. He opened up his console, and checked for any vulnerabilities.

Scrolling through the logs, he quickly found the chink in the armor, and with a few deft keystrokes and a press of the enter key, made his way into David's account.

He went to his PM box. The first three conversation threads immediately stuck out at him. The most recent, and longest, was a discussion between David and "RudeRudy", and the other two were messages from"BarerOfBadNews" Rudy and the informant.

Frank opened the earliest message first.

 **From: BarerOfBadNews**

 **Topic: Important Insider Information: URGENT! PLEASE READ!**

 **Mr. Lennox, I know many on your forum have talked about the necessity to separate predator and prey, and the failure of pan-species integration. Well I have got something important to add to that discussion. For my own safety cannot reveal my identity, but let's just say I am an employee of the AniTech corporation, and a fellow predator, and I have privileged access to information you should be very interested in, information about the development of a new project called "Tame Collars."**

 **Attached is a picture of a document signed by Mayor Bellwether authorizing the release of medical information on "Savage Predators" to the corporation AniTech, for the purposes of something called a "Tame Collars Project."**

 **As someone inside AniTech I can tell you they are trying to keep this under wraps. Their aims are sinister.**

 **I know you have little reason to trust my sincerity, but this needs the attention of a wise individual like yourself.**

This was the message which started it all. All the death and destruction, what had ruined Francisco's life.

Then he noticed something striking: The IP-address of the user, displayed under the mammal's name, as the site believed he was an admin!

Frank eagerly scribbled it down. Already he had found one key lead.

He would keep digging, but he felt a great sense of accomplishment already!

The next message, again, was from the same user.

 **From: BarerOfBadNews**

 **Topic: I notice you still haven't posted about this**

 **Mr. Lennox, I assure you, the documents I showed you are real. The threat is real. Here is my contact information if you would like to discuss it further.**

Frank scribbled that down. He was on a roll.

Next was... he felt a sudden dread at reading the most recent: The discussion between David and Rudy. He clicked the back button, and the title stared at him. It had started before the last message from the informant, continued well after.

The coyote's chest tightened, but he navigated his mouse and clicked.

 **From: RudeRudy**

 **Topic:** **Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:** **Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:** **Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:** **Re: Re: Re: Re:** **Need a second opinion**

 **Great, we'll talk then.**

It was the last post in a long thread, so he pressed a button on the top to reverse the order, and start the conversation at the beginning.

 **To: RudeRudy**

 **Topic:** **Need a second opinion.**

 **Hey Rudy. I need a friend who I can confide in. I know we don't always see eye to eye, but you've been right in the past. I got a message, a PM, from someone claiming to have inside information about some kind of project at a corporation called AniTech to develop something called "Tame Collars." It sounds ominous, but I don't want to jump the gun and get everyone riled up over what could be a bit of clever trolling. Here is the exact message I received, what do you make of this:**

Below was a screenshot.

If only it _had_ been a clever bit of trolling. Seven mammals would still be alive.

Next came the wolf's response.

 **From: RudeRudy**

 **Topic: Re: Need a second opinion**

 **I think you should follow this up. Those documents look legit. The berry-munchers have gotten cocky in this city since they got their bunny cop. Do you have any contact information for this guy?**

Then:

 **To: RudeRudy**

 **Topic: Re: Re: Need a second opinion**

 **No, they didn't provide any. That makes me suspicious, now that you mention it.**

If only the damn informant had not been smart enough to provide any.

 **From: RudeRudy**

 **Topic: Re: Re: Re: Need a second opinion**

 **Ask for some. This smells too real to ignore.**

Then:

 **To: RudeRudy**

 **Topic: Re: Re: Re: Re: Need a second opinion**

 **Nevermind, I got something. A phone number. He or she hasn't responded to my message yet, though. But I'm starting to think you are right: this may be legitimate. I didn't think things could get so bad so fast.**

Frank looked away. This was all overwhelming for him. But he had to soldier through this.


	32. Barer of Bad News

A knock at the door caused him to jump in his chair.

"Francisco, we're heading back to the station. Do you have all the information you need?"

"I...yeah..." He felt like he had been in a trance after so much time scrolling obsessively through David's computer. He had read through all his private discussion with Rudy. He hoped he might be able to find some kind of clue about the two of them: perhaps point himself towards their hideout or some such. Or maybe that's just a lie he was telling himself...

Frank shut down the computer, the words of Rudy still haunted him: Talk of how they had shunned the wisdom of their ancestors, of how they were paying the price for violating the ancient natural order: the big above the small, and the predator above the prey. Talk of how foolish they had been to let themselves become so outnumbered in their own lands.

And talk of how they should have never stopped eating prey.

On his sheet of paper, he had all the valuable information he could gather. Most intriguing to him was the contact information of the informant. He wondered what Chief Bogo would make of that.

He exited the office, and handed the hulking bovine the paper. Frank looked at his face as his eyes scanned back and forth.

Then his mouth opened, ever so slightly.

"My God..."

The coyote's ears perked up. He may have really stumbled on something, done something, important. Before he could ask, Bogo elaborated:

"That IP address...I think...no, I can't jump to conclusions. I need to make a call back to the station."

He took off his radio and pressed a button, as Francisco stopped breathing with anticipation.

"Francine, patch me through to Detective Oates, right away."

"Sure thing, boss!"

There was a brief, thick silence, then another voice: suave and happy.

"Heeeelllo, Milton! You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes, Oates. The IP address zee, eight, eight, one, four, nine, two, one, nine, nine, four, four dot one, does that ring a bell for you?"

"Actually...it does. I just...hold on."

Frank could hear some fast, brisk typing.

"Yep. That's one of our proxies! Used by undercover agents! Why do you ask?"

Bogo's face was stunned.

"Thank you, Detective. We'll be back in the station in ten."

Bogo put back his radio and looked at the expectant coyote with stern eyes.

"This implies something very serious, Francisco. We need to get Fangmeyer and head back to the city hall."


	33. 000

Sitting in her mighty chair, Dawn Bellwether undid the clamps atop her plastic container and took out her grass sandwich. It had been a busy morning, but hardly a day went by when Bellwether did not think of how much she preferred the Mayor's office to the boiler room. She thought she had escaped the smug superiority of the predators when she became active in Populist politics, but only now was she truly free.

Progress in Zootopia was moving a mile a minute. Sad and ironic, though, that Judy Hopps had not become her ally. She of all mammals had been in a position to understand the evils of predator privilege.

 _"We're on the same team, Judy. Under-estimated. Under-appreciated. Aren't you sick of it?"_

Yet it seemed she had caught feelings for a fox, and that had made her weak. Dawn had first witnessed that weakness in this very room.

In truth, though, Bellwether was bitten by the same bug, to an extent. The foxes were much like her kind: held in society's disdain. That is why she had avoided targeting foxes, weasels, and raccoons: the outcasts of the predator race. What she did to Nick was simple necessity. She had originally considered abstaining from tagging smaller mammals altogether, but Doug had convinced her otherwise.

Sometimes she wondered if big and small mattered more than predator and prey. But that was a disparity she could not solve. Not yet, at least.

Then there was a beep, she was being paged.

She put down her sandwich and swallowed.

"Yes? Who is it?"

"Mayor Bellwether, something urgent has come to our attention. Someone was feeding the terrorists from Spearhead information from inside the city hall."

The ewe's face prickled with electric fear, and her gut turned cold.


	34. On the Trail

"I'm honestly not surprised to find another predator supremacist sympathizer in these halls. A lot of us here were upset about the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. I'm sure you remember Wolfowitz was once one of ours."

"You were among them, Bogo," Fangmeyer said as they walked upon the polished floors.

"I was. Maybe I still am. I'm not faulting anyone for thinking it was a silly legislation...but some of the predators here don't like how the city is changing. They feel they're losing their place."

They began their way up the stairs.

"We are losing our place on the city streets from eight to six, Chief Bogo."

"Yes...I...well. I'm not condoning all the actions of Mayor Bellwether. But I think we can both agree terrorism is not the answer."

"Agreed, Chief Bogo."

They arrived on the second floor, and headed into a room full of cubicles.

A brown horse in suspenders and a magenta tie turned to them.

"There you are, Milton. What can I do ya for?"

"I need a list of everyone who accessed that proxy this past month and where," the chief said seriously.

"Oh, that's not my fortee. Go on over to Vicky, she's our tech girl."

He gestured to a block of smaller cubicles, where a weasel in pink sweat pants, a tank top, and glasses sat, pattering away at her keyboard.

The larger mammals approached.

"Victoria." She swivelled around. "I have a very important matter for you to look into. I need you to tell me who has been using one of our proxies on the dates April 24th and April 26th. Are you ready for the IP address?"

"Sure. Just one second."

After a bit more typing, and a few mouse clicks, she turned back to Bogo. "What is it?"

"IP address zee, eight, eight, one, four, nine, two, one, nine, nine, four, four dot one."

"Oh yeah, sure," she said, swiveling back. "Zee, eight, eight, one...Just...uh...say that again?"

"Zee, eight, eight, one, four, nine, two, one, nine, nine, four, four dot one."

She pressed the enter key.

"That doesn't seem to...oh, hold on, I'm an idiot. Four- _four._ Okay."

She pressed it again, then started examining the results. Francisco watched her eyes scan the records, the reflection of the computer screen upon her pupils.

"Okay, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth you said? Looks like...alright, mostly our computers right here...I think that's Becca...Jim. They were both on cases...oh wait! A couple of hits from a wireless device, that's odd."

"When?" Bogo asked eagerly.

"3:43pm and 9:01pm."

"Perfect. We know that's them. But..." the bovine placed a hoof on his chin and wandered into thought. "A wireless device. So we can't trace it back to any mammal's computer. Hmf. They weren't stupid."

He removed his hoof.

"Is there anyway you could...trace those calls to the proxy back to a specific employee?"

"Well, let's see..." she said, looking back at her screen and making a few clicks.

"No, it's not...you could start by looking at the cameras, see if anyone was using a cellphone or laptop at those hours."

Chief Bogo sighed loudly. He turned back to the coyote.

"Alright. Looks like we have another visit to make. C'mon Francisco."


	35. Dining With a Murderer

"Security concerns are high amid President Bronco Bamma's planned visit to the city of Zootopia in two days. Two deadly terrorist attacks by Predator Supremacists in just one week have city officials on edge," the news anchor said.

There was an image of a brick building with a gaping hole in the wall. Centzon, probably. He was glad they had not shown AniTech.

It cut to an image of the brown stallion President speaking.

Frank's mind wandered back to a time when a prey animal in public office was unthinkable: the time Wolfowitz was trying to bring back.

They had found nothing on the cameras back at the city hall. Of course, the cameras had blind spots, and the police chief said he would ask around to see if he could get any witness testimony of people playing with cellphones or laptops at the time those messages were sent.

"Coming up next, we'll tell you how to prepare the perfect Unification Day turkey!"

 _Unification Day._ He had completely forgotten. It was only...what? Four, five days away?

Just weeks ago he had planned on a happy celebration with his family. Now what would it be? What could it possibly be? What could Unification Day with a mass murderer be like? He had not even broached the topic during the phone call with his parents in jail. How could he possibly bring up a topic like that?

Those bastards at The Stained Fang had played him like a fiddle and ruined his life. Now they were out plotting God knew what evil. And Bellwether had robbed him of their chance at catching at least one of them, the avatar of predator anger: Wolfowitz.

Frank thought back to the old psychopath. An unhinged mammal, but not stupid. His mind wandered back to his unnerving conspiracy theory, that Bellwether was behind the Predator Attacks. Blue spots on the fur. What could it mean?


	36. A Buzz and a Text

**Mayor Bellwether Announces "Small Adjustments" To Recruitment Standards for ZPD, Back-Tracking on Previous Claims**

 **Some Predators and Prey Agree: Seperation is the Key to Peace in Zootopia**

 **Wolfgang the Great Statue Vandalized in Miamane Park, anti-Predator Animousity Blamed**

 **Teacher Begins Campaign to Ban 'Tag' on School Grounds, Cites Dark Origins, Claims It Celebrations Predation**

 **New Day Club In Savannah Central Gets Rave Reviews from Nocturnal Zootopians**

The coyote's phone buzzed.

It was a text from 'Police Chief.'

 **Francisco, I may have a lead. I want to interview you again tomorrow. Stop by the police station. Around 12pm.**


	37. Changes in Dispositions

A/N: I apologize for the spate of short chapters. The next one will be quite meaty, believe me.

* * *

Though he had slept through most of the afternoon, Frank could not deny he was full of anticipation regarding the lead Chief Bogo had found. It was a stark contrast to his usual feelings of shame and helplessness. The Mayor may have knocked him off course, but he was getting back on the trail.

Nothing would ever erase what he had done, but he could at least put a band-aid on the wound, and get a bit of revenge.

He was on the train, sitting a long distance between a giraffe and a rhino in a nearly empty car. Maybe in a few days those prey would see Rudy's apprehension on the news, and something about the predator who made it happen.

For now they had no idea who they were sitting next to.

The train stopped, and the sparse collection of passengers began filing out.

Back in the sunlit Savannah Central streets, he began his way in the direction of the city hall. To think he had once believed the city would put them in collars. Dawn Bellwether was no angel, but shock collars being imposed on every predator was an absurd fever dream. His fear and anger had made him gullible. Though unlike a dream, the consequences of his actions had not faded. That was the cruel and inescapable reality he kept running into.

Trotter's Bagels and Donuts had the same sign as last time.

A rabbit with a suitcase passed him by, reminding him of the event that started this all.

His life had been nearly perfect before all this. He had found his niche in the world, a place to excel and prosper. But he had fallen from the deck of a yacht into a furious, dark, tumultuous sea. He did not know how he would feel when he was finally landed.

And there was the majestic town center, a little patch of well groomed nature surrounded by big, vibrant architecture. The fountain water jumped with joy still, even after all the city had been through.

He walked under the legs of a giraffe and entered the mighty glass doors. There was the same female elephant at the front desk. She was having a conversation with someone over her pager, seemingly a serious matter. It ended just as Francisco got within range.

She looked up at him, and mustered a weak smile. Frank began to worry a little. He spoke first.

"Hi, it's me again. Francisco. I'm here to see Chief Bogo."

"Oh...okay," she said, almost sounding hesitant. She pressed the button. "Chief, Francisco is here to see you."

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

"Not today, Francine. Tell him to come back...tomorrow. Around the same time."

She released the button.

"Sorry. The chief's a bit flustered."

"Why's that?" he asked, the worry solidifying in his chest.

Fangmeyer, who had arrived by his side with a styrofoam coffee, spoke. "Bronco Bamma escaped an assassination attempt. And two more predators went savage today."

Francisco's soul sank like a rock in a thick black void.

"Can you believe it?" the elephant said to the tiger. "I hear Bellwether's on the phone with the President right now."


	38. Milton's Concern

Francisco found himself in a familiar place, cocooned in the quilts of his bed, in his dark room, having retired early. The news he had heard at the police station had ripped out a piece of him: the return of the Predator Attacks. Back down this horrible, dark stream they were pulled. Now the prey would have compounded excuses to hate and dispossess predators.

Even if they could catch the terrorists, how much would it matter now, with Savage Syndrome back?

Maybe it would not be long before he would leave this city. Prey still outnumbered predators in greater nation, but not by nearly as steep a margin. A predator exodus would be a disaster for Zootopia. The predators were the economic engine of the metropolis. But that would not be his problem. Maybe that would teach prey a lesson that would redeem predators in their eyes, or maybe -

The buzz of his phone against his night-stand violently jolted him out of his thoughts. Who would call at this hour?

He picked it up, the electric screen glaring its artificial light against his weary eyes.

Chief Bogo.

Frank answered.

"Hey Chief, what's the word?"

"Francisco...I can't believe I'm saying this, but...I'm worried about you. Mayor Bellwether was on the phone with the President all day today. Maybe she still is. My shift ended half an hour ago. I think she's trying to convince him to declare a state of emergency in Zootopia."

Frank did not respond. A heavy silence hung in the air.

"If that happens, she'll have the proper authority to arrest you this time. It turns out we don't live very far apart. I want you to come to my apartment ASAP. 8002 Afton Avenue, room 115. Walk there. Don't take a cab or any public transportation. The fewer people know about this, the better."

"I...are you sure? Do you know she's planning to arrest me?"

"I can't know for certain. But if it comes to nothing, I've lost nothing."

There was another pause, before he added, "I think Mayor Bellwether is into something dirty."

Those were powerful words.

Then Bogo said, "We'll talk more about it when you get here."

"Okay, I..."

The chief hung up.

A small part of him felt good he was so appreciated. A larger part of him was scared.

At least it meant some action, something to do other than wallow in depression and despair. He removed his covers and stood, and threw his crumpled clothing back on.

Exiting his room, he reflected on this beautiful apartment, earned with his hard-work and talents. It could soon be snatched away from him. He had only just got out of prison. Soon he might be back, at least if not for the police chief's intervention.

He exited into the hall.

So many times he had walked this path, but never had it felt more significant since that horrible day at AniTech.

Out onto the streets, in the crisp night air, there were a sparse number of cars on the roads. On the surface, the city looked the same as ever. But there was something deeply sinister to those in the know. With more Predator Attacks, the city was going to get more heated than ever. And with predators out numbered nine to one...

But if Chief Bogo was right, and Bellwether was into 'something dirty', that would at least take some of the heat off the sharp-tooths. He just wondered what Chief Bogo could have suspected Mayor Bellwether of. She was not the innocent little lamb she appeared to be from afar, but certainly she could not be up to anything worse than the terrorists from The Stained Fang.

He wondered, were they the ones behind Bronco Bamma's assassination attempt? From what he read on the news, the mammal apprehended was a hyena named Tyrone McLaughlin. Was that the hyena he had seen Wolfowitz with? It could just be coincidence.

He saw a white sign with the writing **NO PREDS ALLOWED** on a door. It was Muler's Music. Anti-predatory hostility was becoming mainstream.

The corner he needed to turn was ahead. He remember turning this avenue on four legs. He was back where it had all begun, where his blood had been spilled. No one suspected a bunny being a criminal, and everybody suspected a predator of being a savage. That deadly combination had nearly got him killed.

A police car was racing down the streets, and the coyote tightened up. What if the "emergency" had just been declared, and -

But as it passed by, he felt a euphoric relief.

To think he, the straight A student, the child who had never been grounded, was now afraid of the law. It was fittingly stereotypical for his species, though. Even his line of work was close to criminality. To a small extent, he had done his part in perpetuating stereotypes, in that. But he was hardly alone. There had been plenty of foxes, coyotes, and weasels in his cyber security classes. The teacher who had taught him most about hacking, Malateste, was a fox.

Malateste...Francisco thought back to those big dorky glasses, back in the days when his life was whimsical.

8001.

8002.

There it was, Bogo's apartment complex. The plaque said "Tarvos Tower." It seemed like a bit of a pretentious name considering the height of the building. Perhaps they just liked the alliteration.

Frank entered, passing through the respectable looking lobby, which was empty save for a receptionist. Room 105...room 109...room 111...room 113...room 115.

The coyote knocked.

A small part of him started to worry. What if Bellwether had already given out his warrant and this was a set up? If that was the case, however, he was already doomed.

The bovine's heavy footsteps could be heard before the door opened. He was in jeans and a white t-shirt. That allowed Frank to somewhat let his guard down.

"Come in," he said, under his breath, holding the door for Frank.

The coyote entered. It was a nice apartment, spacious as a small house, but the police chief promptly closed the door behind him.

Frank looked back to Bogo, who power-walked over to his sink, quickly filled a glass of water, and then chugged it down, before looking back at the canine.

"I'm taking a big risk bringing you here, Francisco. Come on. Let's talk."

The hulking mammal walked towards his living room. He settled down on his couch, and Francisco settled on a nearby plad recliner.

Frank spoke up first, "You said you thought Mayor Bellwether was 'into something dirty.' What did you mean by that?"

Milton Bogo sighed and leaned back, going limp and staring up where the ceiling met the wall.

"Mayor Bellwether changed after the attack on the AniTech offices. She became antsy, defensive, private. Maybe she's just that worried for the city but I don't think so. A leader is supposed to be collected and strong in times of crisis. So barring the possibility of gross incompetence, she's hiding something."

Francisco asked the big question. "What do you think it is?"


	39. Footholds

Frank awoke to the sensation of rough couch fabric under his face. He could see it was well into the morning and Bogo was gone. The exhausted coyote had apparently slept through his departure.

How late was it? The coyote rolled over and reached into his pocket and pulled his cellphone out. It had just enough juice to function. It was 9:23.

He was supposed to meet Bogo at noon today, was that still on? He decided to text the chief and await a confirmation.

Done with that, he laid his phone to rest.

It had been a tumultuous day yesterday: learning about the predators who went savage, being invited to the police cheif's apartment out of fear of his own arrest, and then the conversation about Bogo's suspicions. It felt like a sail through dark and stormy seas.

But Bogo's suspicions about the mayor were vague and aimless. Francisco had brought up Rudy's conspiracy theory, but Bogo did not seem to take much heed in it. Apparently Wolfowitz had a reputation for being a tin-foil hat even before this.

He sat up. He decided to turn on the news. Turning on the TV, he landed right on ZNN.

"Another incident of 'Savage Syndrome' last night as law enforcement officer Fenton O'Roarly reportedly turned 'feral' during a late night call in Savannah Central. His partner, Angus Bellwether, says he witnessed the entire incident, calling for back up to restrain the rogue officer."

It cut to a night-time interview of a sheep in uniform. A lot of alarms had just gone off in Francisco's head. Angus Bellwether, that was one of the Mayor's brothers. It was Woolter Bellwether who had been at the scene of the savage fox who killed Judy Hopps. Now one of her other brothers was at the scene of another savage? That screamed something incriminating. His mind rushed back to Rudy's conspiracy theory.

The blue spots. What could they mean?

He may have been a crazy terrorist, but he was perceptive. This might change Bogo's mind. It certainly shifted Francisco's.

He picked up his phone. The cheif still had not texted back, so Francisco added:

 **Also, chief, did you know Bellwether has a brother on the force? We should talk about that.**

It was a stupid question, of course he knew, but the coyote sent the text anyway. If he could work with Chief Bogo to get access to his computer, that would be the next big step in unraveling the mysteries before them. Francisco was excited.

The moose reporter was back on.

"Though there were no deaths or injuries, this marks the first time a law enforcement officer has succumb to the syndrome. Obviously this raises serious safety concerns for citizens of Zootopia, and some political activists have already capitalized on the incident. FuzzFeed's Jeremy Legstrong tweets 'Predator in the ZPD went savage. Just one more reason we need more prey on the force.' It is reasonable to expect this will reignite debate on the Mammal Inclusion Initiative in coming days."

The Mammal Inclusion Initiative, was that another reason for Bellwether to act?

"In related news, an anonymous source confirms Mayor Dawn Bellwether has been on the phone with President Bronco Bama, urging him to declare a state of emergency in the city of Zootopia. Declaring a state of emergency would drastically expand her mayoral powers. The President has so far refused."

The coyote felt even better. Not only did they have a new foothold, but Bellwether had failed to gain her's.

"Between terrorism and Savage Syndrome, a growing number of institutions are becoming uncomfortable with predators in their premises." The news flashed images of storefronts with 'No Preds Allowed' or some variant. "Brett Hopper, owner of the nightclub Centzon, which was attacked several days ago, says a strict no predator policy will be enforced once the night club re-opens. Many citizens, predator and prey alike, are beginning to look to separation as a solution for long-term peace. Yesterday-"

A buzz from his phone caught the coyote's attention.

 **Hi Francisco. It's your call whether you want to come to my office today. The President hasn't declared a state of emergency yet, but we never know what could happen within the next few hours. And yes, I have heard of Angus Bellwether. He's a relatively new recruit, beneficiary of the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. Why do you ask?**

Francisco typed his response:

 **We'll talk about it when I get to your office. I'm coming in today.**


	40. A Friend and An Enemy

Francisco's had mind been keen and alert as he walked the streets of Savannah Central. His eyes scanned for the street for police cars. He was, at the very least, on the verge of being a wanted mammal. It was an exciting and uncomfortable way to live, yet it was a familiar feeling the last couple of weeks.

There were plenty of stationary police vehicles in front of city hall, which was where he was about to enter.

He walked through the glass doors into the grand chamber, the same elephant at the desk. He was a distinctive looking mammal, there were not many coyotes in Zootopia, she would probably remember him.

"Hey there!" she said, apparently having recovered her mood. "Good morning!"

It wasn't morning any more, but Francisco replied:

"Hi. Francisco Hernandez. Here to see the chief."

She pressed the pager button. "Chief, Francisco's here to see you!"

"Tell him to come right up," Bogo said simply.

"You heard him, Francisco! Go on up!"

"Thanks." This time they had something less official planned. They were going to talk about government espionage. Departing from the desk, Francisco made his way past a suited hamster chewing out his rat subordinate. He saw the door he had been escorted into when he was imprisoned. Mammals in police outfits chatted among each other. And then he made it to the stairs.

He began his way up the steps, passing a glacial sloth. Second floor. He made his way up another set. Third floor. He passed an old and feeble goat with a cane, and made it to the fourth floor.

To think, he was about to discuss hacking into the city hall network with the chief of the Zootopia police. But he was glad. Anything was better than a mind wallowing in guilt, haunted by the lives he had taken. He had a chance to make a difference: a real difference, it did not feel like a token contribution this time.

He got to the chief's door, and knocked.

"Come in, Francisco." He could tell the chief was at his desk. He stood on his tip toes to reach the knob, then opened the door and closed it behind him.

Bogo was indeed at his desk, looking very tired, and very serious. The coyote approached the chair that had been set for him.

The coyote climbed onto his seat.

"Mr. Hernandez, it was brave of you to come here. I think Bellwether is on the phone with President again today, although I can't be sure."

Frank began, "I think it's more important what her brother Angus is doing."

"What do you mean?"

"He has an office here, right? Or a cubicle? I want to get onto his computer and see what I can find."

"What you can find? Oh right, you're a hacker..." Milton Bogo really must have been tired. He looked down with a stern contemplation.

"Where is he right now? Is he in today?"

The chief sighed, and looked back up at Francisco.

"His shift is almost over. He should be filling out paper work right now."

"That's perfect. Can you get him away from his computer for just a couple of minutes?"

The bovine's eyes descended, in a moment of serious thought.

"I think I know what to tell him...yes. I can summon him to this office, and keep him occupied for _a few_ minutes."

"That's great, I don't need long. Just tell me where his cubicle is."

"Second floor," Bogo said. "Same room as Vicky. Second cubicle farthest to the right."

"Great, I'll head there right now. Wait a bit before you summon him, though, to maximize my time."

Frank hopped down from his seat. He was not used to being so assertive, usually he took the orders, but he liked it. He could tell Bogo did not like this, but they were soldiers, marching for a cause. He had been contracted by plenty of businesses, but this was the first time he was going to infiltrate the government. This was the first time he was going to stop a crime that was already in progress.

He got to the door, stood back on his tip-toes, and pulled the handle and exited.

He was going to use the same software he had used with the terrorists, but this time it was a sword for a righteous cause, stored in the same little blue flash drive in his pocket.

Back down the stairs, this time head to the work station of an adversary. He was not spying on corporations any more, he was spying on the brother of the most powerful mammal in the city. He just wondered how soon the chief would call Angus Bellwether's name.

He passed the third floor.

"Officer Angus Bellwether, please report to my office. Angus Bellwether, to my office."

Those fateful words.

He arrived at the second floor. He would certainly catch a glimpse of the ram himself before he got to his computer. When he was almost at the door, he saw Angus Bellwether. He was an intimidating figure, with tall stature and mighty horns, but Francisco tried not to look at him. He kept heading for the door with his best poker face.

He entered the cubicle room, hoping there would be nobody near his target. And he was in luck, there was not. The coyote zeroed in on the ram's station. His heart was beating hard in his chest, thrill running through his veins.

He climbed onto Angus' chair, still warm from his wooly butt. On his screen was some kind of report, but Frank did not waste a second reading that.

Frank reached into his pocket. He took out the little blue flash drive. He put it into the nearest USB port.

He lifted his head back to the screen.

He had three files. He only needed one of them this time.

He copied the first program, looking for an obscure folder to place it in. Then he opened up its properties and punched in the necessary fields as promptly as possible, just like at AniTech.

But unlike AniTech, that was it. So quick. So simple. Done.

Not only had he accomplished his goals, but he had plenty of time remaining. Angus probably was not even at Bogo's office yet. He knew he should take advantage.

Heart beating hard, viens flowing with a feral rush, he opened the sheep's work e-mail. He scanned. He did not see any messages from Bellwether. Most of them were from Chief Bogo himself. Of course, there could always be secrets hidden in plain sight, but there was a better use of his time:

The coyote went to Zoogle, and as luck would have it, the ram had an account. He had signed recently enough that the coyote did not need to enter his login information. Frank's spirits exploded. He double clicked. Even luckier, one of the most recent was from Dawn Bellwether.

 **Predonumia**

Strange title. He was really getting into something. He clicked it.

 **Here is the latest draft of predonumia from our 'friends.' I say it's a bit too generous, but when you get a chance, tell me what you think.**

Attached was a picture file. The coyote did not want to leave any trace, so instead of downloading it again, he went to the Downloads folder and opened it.

It was a map of the city of Zootopia, but with a line surrounding a large chunk the city, designating a region that spanned multiple districts. Most strikingly, almost the entire coast of the Tundra District fell into its purview.

Knowing he was deep into somewhere scary and important, he looked for the next message from Dawn.

 **Re: DuClaw Asylum**


	41. Attack Me

" _Who_ is going to attack DuClaw Asylum?"

"I don't know, they don't say. But someone. They say they are going to kill someone named Wilde. I'm ninety-nine percent sure that was the name of the fox that killed Judy Hopps." Frank spoke with vigor. He not only had a chance to save a life, but also might bring a criminal empire crashing down.

"I think you're right about that," Bogo said. "But did they actually use the word 'kill'?"

"Well, no, but they used the words 'deal with.' What else would it be? This may be the missing piece we need. You remember the story of Judy's death, how strange it was? One of Bellwether's other brothers was at the scene. I bet they want to kill Wilde before he can recover and talk." Frank's paws had made it onto Bogo's desk in his excitement.

"But do you know exactly when they are going to carry this out?"

"No, but it's going to be soon."

Bogo stopped and thought, resting his chin on his hoof. The coyote disengaged from his desk. It was a suspenseful silence. Obviously, a the police chief was not used to being in this sort of situation. But the implications were like a broken dam. Bellwether _was_ hiding something, and that crazy wolf, horrible as he was, might be right about his conspiracy theory.

"Francisco...I think you're going to need to go undercover."

"What?"

He opened a drawer and put something strange on his desk.

"Take that. Keep it in one of your buttoned pockets, or somewhere you know it won't fall out. Press the button to contact me."

"Right now, where am I going undercover?"

"Duclaw Asylum. We're going to set you up as a savage."

"What!?" Frank's excitement halted. "They'll put me in a cage! What can I do from a cage!?"

"You can provide important testimony about the attack. Help us gather the facts."

"We're just going to leave Wilde to die!?"

"I'm in a difficult position, but I assure you whatever I come up with to protect him, you won't be a part of that. This is where you will be most useful."

He was most useful in a cage?

"That...this seems like a stretch."

His spirits were starting to die. He had walked to Bogo's office with heroic fantasies dancing in his mind.

"It would also keep you safe from Bellwether's arrest. I think the President is going to crack eventually."

Again, silence.

"There has to be a better way."

Bogo began contemplating again. Francisco tightened in hopes he would think of one.

"I could tell them...no..."

There was another long, hard silence. Frank noticed just how sound-proof the office was.

"There is none."

But the police chief would know best. If this was the only way he could help, surely it was better than nothing.

"Fine, I'm in. What do I need to do?"

"First, put the little radio some place secure."

Frank did so, stuffing it in a pocket he was not used to using, and buttoning it closed. He looked back up at the chief.

"Now...attack me."

"What!? Now!? Are you sure?"

"I can handle it. Attack me."

It sounded crazy, but so was everything else he had been through.

If it was an order from the chief of police, how crazy could it be.

"...okay."

The coyote was stationary, staring into the bovine's brown, reflective eyes. Only the silence of room watched them. He just had to make the choice.

With a push of will he crossed the line, throwing away all his previous mind, charging across the desk, growling as he went for the bovine's juicy throat.


	42. The Breakout

Fortune had smiled upon him, for he had been placed right across from Wilde. It had been a rough ride getting to this point, he felt a measure of pity for the Savages now, but it was only a matter of time before he would be able to help the good fight.

His cell, or room, was designed for a bigger mammal. It had a bed, a night stand, and a thick, metal, key-padded door flanked by two reinforced glass windows which stretched to the floor.

The fox across from him wore a sweat-stained, green, button-down shirt and khaki pants, though supposedly hidden away in that mind were all of Bellwether's dirty secrets.

It had been about twenty-four hours since he had first arrived here. He had kept up the act at all time, snarling and barking at passersby and never standing on two legs.

Although outwardly he was a savage, inside his mind still stirred in its usual ways.

Then there was the break in the monotony! The back wall of Nick's cell crumbled, the back of an armored truck crashing through. This is the moment he had been waiting for!

He ripped the tiny radio out of his pocket, breaking character for the first time! "Bogo, the asylum's been compromised! A truck just crashed through the wall of Wilde's cell!"

But out of the back of the truck came two wolves in gas masks with guns, and a lion. Predators? What?

Predators he knew well!

"Predators with guns! It looks like the Spearhead terrorists!"

The two males grabbed the fox, while Jamie seemed to be heading for the door.

Although he had spit out the message, he could not make sense of it. It seemed unreal. What if he was really insane, and that whole business with Bogo had been a false memory?

"We're coming, Francisco, hold tight!"

But that was Bogo's voice.

Rudy and David threw the fox in the back of the van. And with a burst of sparks, the door to Wilde's cell opened, giving Jamie access to the hall.

She was holding a grenade launcher, an MGL-140 (he knew from his computer games). She fired a round in each direction, and it was followed by a hiss of gas. Tear gas, he inferred.

She then approached the window of Frank's cell. Did she know he was a plant? The coyote froze.

"You're damn lucky that trick doesn't work from the outside, Francisco. But once I opened these doors, Wolfowitz will deal with you!"

She began marching off rightward, in the direction of one of her own clouds of tear gas, and Wolfowitz took her place. He had a single-barreled shotgun in hand. Frank's heart was pounding.

"I don't know what future you think we have with these pernicious, low IQ berry-munchers, but you won't live to see it."

The wolf positioned himself right in front of the door.

Is this how it would end: body full of metal pellets in the middle of an insane asylum cell, being stared down by a face concealed behind a gas mask?

Rudy was buffered on each side by Jamie's tear gas. It was a clever assault. But why were _they_ here? What on Earth could lead to Bellwether and David working together!? Was he truly insane!?

"Wh-why?" the coyote asked weakly. "Why are you working with her?"

He would likely die without being able to use the information, but at least he would have an answer.

"We have a common goal, but this isn't how she wanted things to go down."

That did not explain anything.

Then he heard the warcry of angels: police sirens. First distant, but closing in fast!

"Shit!" Wolfowitz said. He looked around frantically. Francisco's miracle had come!

After some in decision, the wolf relinquished his ground and bolted back in the other direction. Francisco was saved. Rudy opened the truck door and stuffed himself in. There was a brief delay before the vehicle parted, letting the sunshine pour in in full before taking a sharp left. Police cars followed shortly behind.

Then Frank's cell door opened. That had been an amazingly close shave. But he couldn't stay here, Jamie was still loose in the building. He ran, soon realizing all the other cells had opened as well. Though, _he_ was now protected by the tear gas.

His feet pounded through Nick Wilde's cell, the stink of sweat and stress soon giving way to fresh air.

As he emerged into the outside world, a word came to his mind:

 _Predonumia._


	43. 111

The ping confirmed they had arrived. The two mammals, a bunny and a bovine, both so physically different, but both prey, walked out onto the polished floor, high above the city.

Judy did not know where they were going, though she knew it was important. As they walked, something caught her eye on the right side of the hall. It was a marble pedestal, bearing a model ship in a glass case. It was designed to be viewed by animals much taller than herself. The plaque at the top of pedestal was too far to read, but a second had been installed closer to her level. She had a feeling it was a recent addition.

Judy stopped, look at the words engraved in the brass.

 **ZSS Overstraten, the first ship deployed to end the international prey trade. Set sail in 1663, officially retired in 1677.**

The rabbit ran her paw over the letters.

"Hopps?"

He was holding opened one of the double doors, and beckoned her into some kind of office.

Then she saw, it was the mayor at the desk. The once downtrodden ewe in the boiler room was now sitting atop Zootopia.

"Take a seat, Hopps," Bogo said gently as she entered.

The mayor herself wanted to see Judy. This was big, but the rabbit's enthusiasm was...not existent.

She climbed onto the chair, Mayor Bellwether baring a collected and polite but eager smile. She gestured to a laminated piece of paper on the desk.

Judy picked it up. It was a poster. It was her, a photoshop of her graduation picture, standing proudly in her ZPD uniform. Beside her were the words:

 **Integrity**

 **Honesty**

 **Bravery**

She was silent.

"Don't you like it, Judy? With all the violence going on, the prey need someone to look up to, now more than ever. Who better to fill that role than you?"

The 'prey' needed somebody to look up to? Those words disheartened her. Why just the prey? The Predator Attacks were hurting everyone.

"Ummm...I don't understand."

"Well our city is ninety-percent prey, Judy, and right now they're just really scared. You're a hero to them. They trust you. So that's why Chief Bogo and I want you to be the public face of the ZPD."

'Prey', 'prey', 'prey.' Judy was hurt and confused by such identitarian talk coming from someone who was supposed to be a unifying mayor.

A ewe in the mayor's office, a rabbit as the face of the Zootopia Police Department: It was like one of her goofy college girl fantasies come to life. Yet she felt nothing good.

They saw her as hero. If someone had told her this where she would have been a year ago, she would have agreed whole-heartedly. And yet...

"I'm...not...I'm not a hero." She said the words slowly, as if only just realizing them herself.

She put the poster down on the desk. She thought back to Nick Wilde's pain, the rallies of hate...

"I came here to make the world a better place, but...I think I broke it."

"Don't give yourself so much credit, Hopps," Chief Bogo said. "The world has always been broken. That's why we need good cops...like you."

These were all things she thought she would be ecstatic to hear, and yet...

"With...all due respect...sir...a good cop is supposed to serve and protect. Help the city. Not tear it apart."

She looked down at the poster with a deep frown. That big grin on her face, it was only as deep as the paper.

"I don't deserve this badge."

She began to undo the metal adornment.

"Hopps," Bogo said with a hurt and solemn astonishment.

Mayor Bellwether's face was crinkled in disbelief. "Judy! You've worked so hard to get here! It's what you've wanted since you were a kid. You can't quit!"

She placed the metal down upon the poster with a gentle clink.

"Thank you for the opportunity," she said, almost a whisper.

She rotated her chair and lept down. She walked away, head bowed, as two astonished gazes trailed her.


	44. Downtime

Francisco was seated at a booth in the orange and white surroundings of Chez Cheez. It was the first time he had been inside one: only recently had the chain started marketing towards larger mammals. He had only ordered a water. On a plasma screen television, two guests of ZNN were debating. The sound was off, closed captioning on.

 **These studies fail to factor in size. Predators are, on average, .98 size indexes bigger than prey. As we all know, mammals of greater size tend to-**

He took another sip of water. His mind was still swirling over the shocking connection between Bellwether and the Spearhead Terrorists. They were opposites, seemingly mortal enemies, yet somehow allied?

But they did have a lot in common under the surface. They both wanted separation: that is what Predonumia must have meant, a piece of the city carved out just for predators. A prison, or an oasis, depending on how one looked at it. Second, they both wanted to punish society. One, because it had oppressed prey, the other because it had treated them too nicely.

But Frank remembered Bogo said he had only seen a change in the mayor's behavior after the AniTech attack. If she had an alliance with the terrorists, she did not expect them to act out in such a manner. So why would she support them in further terrorist endeavors? It made sense for Bellwether to support predator terrorism: it helped make predators look savage, and it helped the calls for separation. But then why would she be distressed about the attack on AniTech?

Maybe she was not a collaborator in their previous activities, maybe she just wanted their help getting rid of the fox. But why would the Spearhead Terrorists help her? And how on Earth could she have contacted them?

It was all a surreal mess in his mind.

He took another sip.

"Francisco, do you copy?"

The coyote swallowed hard and then clumsily and awkwardly pried the radio from his pocket.

"Yes chief, how can I be of service?"

"I...I don't know. I just contacted you to tell you...we...we lost them. Somewhere in the Rainforest District. We lost the trail. I thought you should know."

His heart sank.

"Thanks for the information. So what are we going to about this business with Bellwether?"

"I...I don't know about that either. This puts me in a sticky situation."

Now they both felt tangled in a web. Frank did not know how to respond, so he looked back up at the television.

 **In other news, the situation at DuClaw Asylum has finally been contained, although two staff members have been hospitalized in critical condition, and three predatory mammals suffering Savage Syndrome appear to be unaccounted for. Nicholas Wilde, Francisco Hernandez, and Lionel Owens have yet to be located and apprehended by authorities.**

The screen displayed their three pictures.

 **This has been the third terror attack in the city in less than one month, starting with the bombing of the AniTech Corporate offices on Cook Road.**

They showed the building where this had all began, a gaping hole in its side. It was the first time he had seen such a photograph: the mark of his atrocity.

"Well, I know where I'm heading, chief."


	45. Can You Swim?

_Terrorism. Hate. Bigotry. Predator Guilt. Separation._ _Spearhead. No Preds Allowed. Predator. Prey._

All those terms had been flying around his head on the way here, and likely minds of many these past few weeks. But he had never returned the scene of the crime, until now.

His shoes pressed against the asphalt, warm under the spring sun, which as reflected in the many windows of the AniTech building. This is where it had all begun, and where he had lost his innocence. The building was surrounded beautifully groomed gardens. For most, it had been nothing but a place of mundane work, until that horrible night.

He had had a lot of time to think on the way here. The craziness of the last couple of weeks was mind-boggling. To think it followed its way all way up to the mayor. Frank remembered what Wolfowitz had said at his cell. "We have a common goal, but this isn't how she wanted things to go down." What did he mean? Had she expected they would take more subtle route capturing Mr. Wilde, or was it something even bigger than that?

He walked onto a pebbly little path through the surrounding gardens, by the outdoor lunch tables. He could see tarp covering the hole Rudy had made in the side of the offices. It felt like a small mercy to have it concealed.

If something was going to jog his memory, it would happen in the place where he fell: not spiritually, literally. It would happen in garden where the wolf had hit him with a giant stick. With all its invisible demons, it was waiting for him.

A familiar looking rosebush was ahead, he was almost certain he was beginning to see it, this time in daylight. He could hear the quiet rush of the nearby river.

Suddenly, a memory came back.

 _"Frank, can you swim?"_

The question was colorless, voiceless. Who had asked it, Rudy, or David? Somehow he was certain it was not Jamie.

It did not matter. It was one of his memories, lost when he had been smacked in the head! It might the key he had been looking for, the whole ZPD had been looking for!

It was not much to go on, but in finding Zootopia's most wanted terrorists, anything was more precious than gold.

The answers started somewhere in that river. He ignored the garden and approached the brook. He crossed over the parking lot to his promised destination, then back onto soft grass.

The river was thick, maybe tall as a lion at its deepest point. The waterfall was perhaps fifty yards upstream.

Did Wolfowitz want him to swim across? There was nothing but a tangle of brush and a busy road across, maybe the answer lied further down stream.

It was worth a shot.

The coyote approached the water. He was grasping in the dark, but if there was even a one in one-thousand chance this would lead him in the right direction, it was worth it. His sneakers got soggy and his pants turned black as he dipped into the water. Deeper and deeper he went, the cool water passing his knees, then his reproductive organs, then his navel, then his nipples, until he was fully submerged. He began floating with the current.

Somewhere down this river had sailed a great evil. This was the start of its voyage, and his. But where exactly had it, had he, Rudy, landed? It was not long before he saw his first coastal building. Was that their hideout? Probably not. It was a brick building with a dumpster at its back, probably a store. Yet how would he know? Perhaps he could only treat this first run as a scouting opportunity.

As he floated with the current, cars passed the in the streets adjacent, oblivious to his quest. The river gently bent leftwards about one-hundred feet ahead, flanked by a modest, white house on its right and nothing but wild shrubbery on the left. The coyote began swimming to quicken his journey, but keeping a sharp eye on both sides of the river. The hideout could be anything.

He was making his way around the bend, to the next stretch to scan. And something jumped out it him, something ahead. Something anomalous, yet familiar. The back of the truck, sticking awkwardly from the deepest section of the river! An attempt to dispose of the evidence? There were two, small, boatless docks nearby, and a ramshackle shack. The coyote may have found his Holy Grail!


	46. Old Friends

Frank grabbed onto one of moldy, old posts supporting the nearer of the two docks, against the current of the river. The shack was opened to the air on his side. He thought he could hear the pattering of a keyboard, but it was hard to tell against the rush of the stream. He moved inland, settling in slightly shallower water, so he could scrape every sound, gather all the intelligence. His heart was pounding.

Yes, there was pattering of a keyboard.

"I think Wilde could use some more water." It was David, the lion who had spoke. It felt like it had been so long. To hear his voice on such different terms was surreal. "Where did you put the bottles?"

"In the back pack. Jamie's going to be bringing food." She escaped?

"What's her ETA?"

"Let me ask..."

More pattering, then a suspenseful silence.

"She says about twenty minutes. She wants to see how far we got with the van. I'm going to go snap her a pic."

The wolf rose and footsteps began coming in Frank's direction. The coyote froze. His heart began beating even harder and faster. The wolf sounded like he was going to arrive on the other dock, which meant he could spot Frank. Everything depended on the next few moments.

"I'm still not convinced we can submerge it completely even if we reorient it," David said.

Then came the wolf's damning visible form, on the other dock. He was clad in the same thing the coyote had last seen him, sans the gas mask. Frank nearly tingled. He did not notice Frank initially, and the van was in the opposite direction of the coyote, so maybe he would not notice him at all.

The wolf nonchalantly raised his cellphone and snapped a picture. He stepped a little bit further out and snapped another. The coyote could barely breath.

The moment of truth was coming. The wolf turned. He probably would not notice him but-

Rudy stopped.

"Who the..." He back-pedaled, and then crouched. Their eyes met. "Francisco..."

There was a silence. Nothing but the currents of the river accompanied them. The coyote was at a loss for words.

"Still whoring yourself out to the prey, are you? I'm surprised we didn't see you here sooner," he growled.

"That means a lot coming from someone who's working for Mayor Bellwether!"

Rudy snorted. "We're not working for her, she's working for us."

"Kid yourself all you want!"

"No. We have the upper hand here. I put the pieces together and figured out she was the AniTech informant, told her I would expose her and got her grovelling at our feet."

Those words hit Francisco like a freight train. That was why Bellwether was so spooked after the attack on AniTech. The leak was not from an AniTech employee after all, but from within the city government: a perfect way to rile up predators and sow more division. It made perfect sense.

The wolf continued, "Now we have Wilde too. He saw what happened the day Hopps was killed. He knows 'Savage Syndrome' was nothing but a government hoax. He'll be our next bargaining chip."

Hopps. Hearing a prey's name in this context was like a punch in the gut, how did Rudy not feel it? She was the best proof Rudy was wrong about prey.

Francisco went on the offensive. "If what you say is true, you're playing right into her hooves! You have evidence that could vindicate predators for all the horrors of this past month, yet you are keeping it to yourself for your own selfish ambition!"

"No! Not selfish!" Rudy shot back angrily. "Predonumia will save our race! The first all predator enclave in over a hundred years!"

"Enclave!?" Frank had never even heard that word before. "It's a prison! Don't you see that!? She's playing you!"

"No! Things will be on our terms! This fox is one more knife in our boot. She wanted us to kill him."

The river continued it callous rush, as the wolf spoke his smoldering words. "We'll be free. Free from those who want to teach our cubs to walk with their heads bowed. Free from the prey's smug air of moral superiority. Free from the bunnies leaching off our tax dollars to pay for their two-hundredth kit, while calling us bigots if we don't pay more. Free from the weak and envious trying to pull us down to their level!"

The coyote found only empty air in his throat. The plan made sense. But Nick Wilde held secrets that could vindicate his kind, prove the destructive influence of Predator Guilt and clean the psyches of millions. And yet it was these predators who, ironically, held him back.

It was Rudy who spoke again. "Zootopia is a failed experiment, Francisco. Swallow your pride and admit it, just like David did! Predator and prey cannot go coexist. The prey's envy, their resentment, will always be with us! When the mighty lion nation opened its gates-"

"You're forcing your will on us! The same mammals you say you want to save!"

"It's _necessary_!" Rudy struck back with bared teeth. "Otherwise we'll continue to be victims of our own altruism! Remember what I told you at The Stained Fang? We evolved looking out for others. The prey didn't."

 _Pack instinct._

The wolf continued, "We predators have been played: guilted about our past, and exploited. All the while convinced-"

"Rudy!" David said from the opposite side of the shack. "Catch!"

At that moment, Frank's instincts took over. He launched himself back into the river, in the direction of the current.

The sound of rattled metal told Frank that Rudy had caught one of the shotguns. These next few seconds meant everything. The coyote's flesh nearly tingled. The van could provide cover, but-

Then there was a click. "Safety's on!" A small and tremendous mercy, enough to save him from the abyss? He moved with all his mite to the fateful vehicle.

The gun roared and rattled Francisco's soul. It made a splash left of him, just before he found himself behind the cover of the van.

Fortune had bestowed him an incredible gift! With shaken soul he shot his hand into his pocket, hoping the device Milton Bogo had given him was water proof.

He pressed the button, the green light turning on.

"Chief! A boating shack on the riverside! Near the AniTech offices! Around the river bend! David and Rudy! Armed and dangerous!"

Rudy would only have to walk a few yards to get another angle on him. He had to keep moving, even if it meant exposing himself again. But the river was deep enough at this point for him to go underwater.

With courage, he submerged himself and bravely launched himself from the truck.


	47. Clean Spirits

On TV was Bronco Bamma, shaking his hoof with the fox Frank had seen feral and ragged: now in a crisp, clean, black suit.

Ironic that Rudy, a mind of such great evil and paranoia, had been right about the Predator Attacks. _Blue spots._ Pretty little flowers had almost given his race their greatest black mark. Further ironic, his truth had got out, even while the mammal himself was behind bars.

"So you never finished telling me how you escaped," Michael said.

"It was mostly luck."

"They were still shooting at you? He just kept missing?"

"I was underwater, difficult to see. And I think he only had four rounds."

There was the president again, this time speaking at a podium.

"This shocking abuse of power by mammals in one of our nation's proudest and most historic cities marks a dark moment for our country's history. But with the terrorists and corrupt officials in the city of Zootopia brought to justice, we can begin a time of healing."

The television cut back to the reporter: a snow leopard, her kind newly vindicated, still retaining her stoic reporter demeanor.

"Authorities are still on the look out for a sheep named Doug Ramses, accused of manufacturing-"

"Turkey's ready!" his mother called. Frank, his father, and his brother-in-law all got up from the couch.

He had redeemed himself, brought Zootopia's most wanted terrorists to justice. He had avenged not only the lost souls of AniTech and Centzon, he had vindicated his entire race.

There was the splendorous feast. Icing on the cake, he was enjoying Unification Day with his family at the end of the world's greatest anti-predator conspiracy, the ultimate slap in the face those mean-spirited Liberal Arts majors at Hayes University.

He now able to dine with his family with clean spirits. He would never forget the lives he had taken, but he had redeemed himself.

He sat down on the wooden chair, ready to begin his meal.

But as he looked at the turkey, the _meat_ , he could not deny Rudy's words continued to haunt him:

His kind could not escape their legacy.

For now, they had peace.

What did the future hold?


	48. 222

Nick Wilde stood, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, a silly plastic pen in the other.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, Carrots. Official business and all."

For a brief second, he produced a half sided smile, before his eyes watered and he sniffled. He wiped a tear with a single finger.

He stood in front of a gravestone, at a well-groomed cemetery.

"No use in getting emotional. But I know you'd want to erase this."

He looked down at the pen and pressed the play button.

 _"I really am just a dumb bunny."_

Those words stung. He remembered their encounter at the park, and then the press conference.

She should not have been the one to apologize. Who could blame her for thinking it was biologically driven, when all the savages were predators? And who could blame her for jumping at his scare tactics, in such tense times?

He erased the words. Only the wind responded.

"You were never just a dumb bunny, Carrots. The world knows that, now."

He dropped the pen onto the soil. He crouched to put the bouquet of flowers down more gently.

As they found their place on the ground, he stood.

Judy had seemed ditzy and innocent. She had proven to be a hero.

Bellwether had seemed ditzy and innocent. She had proven to be a monster.

So what was Nick Wilde?

Perhaps that was left for him to decide.

* * *

"Sweet and docile,  
Meek, humble, and kind:  
Beware the day  
They change their minds."

-"Warning", Langston Hughes


End file.
